Prior to the June 16 Vanity Handicap (gr. I), owner/trainer Myung Kwon Cho might have seemed rather ambitious with his placing of 4-year-old filly Love Theway Youare.
Since taking a Santa Anita maiden and a Hollywood Park allowance event on her sixth and seventh starts—back in the spring of 2011—Love Theway Youare had competed in 11 straight stakes events, 10 of them grade I or II. The daughter of Arch did pick up a third in last year’s Hollywood Oaks (gr. II), beaten 5¾ lengths, and ran second (behind by 3¾ lengths) to the odds-on Vanity favorite Include Me Out in a sloppy renewal of the Santa Margarita Invitational Stakes (gr. I) in March. But she failed to make the frame in her other nine black-type contests in the 12-month series of stakes losses.
Mr. Cho has pulled off surprises in major stakes before, however—notably with Street Hero, who was still a maiden when defeating subsequent champion 2-year-old colt Midshipman in the 2008 Norfolk Stakes (gr. I). He was on the mark again in the Vanity as Love Theway Youare rallied from the rear to run past Include Me Out—who had beaten her in three previous meetings, although Love Theway Youare did lose her jockey in the most recent of those—and score by 2½ lengths.
Love Theway Youare was acquired privately after failing to sell as a short yearling at the 2009 Keeneland January mixed sale. Although she didn’t attract much attention at that auction, there is nothing much wrong with Love Theway Youare’s pedigree. Arch has 40 stakes winners to his credit, including champion older horse Blame ; Arravale, Horse of the Year and champion turf mare in Canada; Les Arcs, highweighted older horse in England; and Overarching, three-time champion sprinter in South Africa; as well as other grade I winners Archarcharch, Pine Island, Prince Arch, and Hymn Book, who took the Donn Handicap (gr. I) in February.
Love Theway Youare’s dam Diversa has produced four winners from five other starters. None of those earned black type, but Diversa herself achieved that feat in a pair of races at Aqueduct, the Busanda Stakes and Busher Stakes, and she also gained a graded stakes placing in the Next Move Handicap (gr. III). Diversa’s sire Tabasco Cat was somewhat disappointing as a stallion but has turned out to be a good broodmare sire, and his daughters have produced other grade I winners Jackson Bend, Ice Box , Tell a Kelly, and Murjan.
Diversa is a half sister to the Lone Star Park Handicap (gr. III) winner Luftikus and to Sensitivity, a listed scorer and group-placed performer in France, and also granddam of Irish stakes winner Song of My Heart (by Footstepsinthesand, a grandson of Tabasco Cat’s sire, Storm Cat). Diversa is also a half sister to the black type-placed Danzig Connection duo Rare Opportunity and Adoradancer. Rare Opportunity, who took third in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes (gr. II) is dam of the Stonerside Beaumont Stakes (gr. II) winner Street Sounds and Canadian black type scorer and U.S. graded-placed Silver Highlight, and Adoradancer produced the Churchill Downs Stakes (gr. II) scorer Saint Anddan, a rare sprinting son of A.P. Indy and now a successful second-crop sire standing in Florida.
Love Theway Youare’s second dam Andora won just once, but had a pair of very talented parents in Horse of the Year Conquistador Cielo and Sabin, a daughter of Lyphard who captured 12 graded stakes events and set a trio of course records, twice at a mile and once at 1½ miles. Sabin produced two stakes winners, Al Sabin and Sabina, and she’s granddam of three more, most notably the Sadler’s Wells horse Poseidon Adventure, a listed winner in Germany who also twice ran second in the IVG Preis Von Europa (Ger-I). Sabin’s stakes-placed daughter In Excelcis Deo (by Forty Niner, like Conquistor Cielo a son of Mr. Prospector) was bred to Tabasco Cat to produce Heavenly Cat, a close relative to Love Theway Youare’s dam Diversa. Heavenly Cat was unraced but is dam of three stakes winners, including the graded scorers Dilemma (by Grand Slam) and Heavenly Ransom (by Red Ransom, a member of the same Roberto sire line as Love Theway Youare’s sire Arch).
Beaconaire, the fourth dam of Love Theway Youare, won a pair of listed races in France. She was by Vaguely Noble out of Ole Liz, one of the best 2-year-old fillies of 1965 and subsequently an important tap-root mare, her descendents including group and grade I winners Film Maker, Aruna, Miss Oceana, Magic of Life, and Kitwood. Ole Liz is the fifth dam of Dawn Approach, winner of the Coventry Stakes (Eng-II) on opening day at Royal Ascot this year,
Love Theway Youare is an example of the cross of Arch over mares by Storm Cat and his sons that has now produced four stakes winners from only 17 starters (TrueNicks-rated A++). The dam of Arch is a reverse Northern Dancer/Raise a Native cross to Diversa, the dam of Love Theway Youare, the Raise a Native coming through the similarly-bred Alydar and Mr. Prospector.