Anakarina wins Love Sign Stakes at Colonial Downs

Anakarina turned the Love Sign Stakes into a Virginia résumé-builder at Colonial Downs, holding off Conquerthosewecan in Race 8 on July 25 and stopping the clock in 1:09.78 for the 6-furlong dirt sprint for fillies and mares 3 years old and up. The win gave the 4-year-old Vekoma filly a black-type stakes victory and put Miller Racing Stable on a card that showed how much mid-Atlantic summer racing now runs through Colonial.

Paco Lopez rode Anakarina for trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., and the result fit the pattern of the day at Colonial, where The Racing Biz noted Lopez posted a stakes sweep. For a horse like Anakarina, that matters as much as the purse money. She is no longer just a useful regional sprinter. She is a stakes winner with a credential that changes how she is placed against fillies and mares in the circuit.

The Love Sign carried $100,000 in guaranteed money and paid 60 percent to the winner, with entries open under a structure that included free nominations, a $500 fee to pass the entry box and a $500 additional fee to start. Supplementary nominations could be made at entry for $2,000. The race was limited to fillies and mares with conditions tied to 2026 earnings, with weights set at 122 pounds for 3-year-olds and 126 for older horses. Those details made the Love Sign a useful step for horses trying to move up without leaving the regional ladder behind.

Colonial’s summer stakes schedule has made that ladder more visible. The track said its 2026 slate included 35 stakes races and handicaps worth more than $6.5 million, capped by the Festival of Racing on Aug. 1. Against that backdrop, Anakarina’s win reads as more than a single score. It places her in the upper tier of the Colonial sprint division for fillies and mares and gives her connections a clear decision: stay in stakes company and look for another mid-summer test, or risk losing the black-type momentum that now defines her season.