By DRF.com
DEL MAR, Calif. (Aug. 7, 2023) — California-bred Bus Buzz’s days of racing exclusively in main track sprints for statebreds ended, at least temporarily, with his emphatic win in the Real Good Deal Stakes for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs on dirt at Del Mar last Friday.
For his final start of the Del Mar summer meeting, Bus Buzz is scheduled to run in the Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap at five furlongs on turf Sept. 2. The $150,000 Green Flash Handicap will be Bus Buzz’s stakes debut against older horses.
The winner receives a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 4.
“We’ve all got to dream, right?” trainer Steve Knapp said.
In the Real Good Deal Stakes, Bus Buzz, who was 9-5, took the lead at the start and was never challenged, leading by as many as six lengths and winning by 4 1/4 lengths in 1:22.97 for breeder Terry Lovingier and his co-owners Tom Halasz and Amanda Navarro.
The Green Flash Handicap will be a tough race for Bus Buzz’s debut on turf.
The first three finishers of a five-furlong allowance race on turf last Friday – Turn on the Jets, Beer Can Man, and Radical Right – are candidates for the Green Flash along with Lane Way and Motorious.
Lane Way has not raced since a win in the Clocker’s Corner Stakes at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita in January. Motorious was second in the Clocker’s Corner Stakes, won the Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes on the hillside turf course in March, and was second in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Turf Sprint May 6 in his most recent start.
The Green Flash Handicap will not include War At Sea, who finished fourth by a half-length despite a troubled trip in the allowance race for turf sprinters last Friday in his first start of 2023.
War At Sea won the Cinema Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/8 miles on turf at Santa Anita in June 2022 and was third by a length in the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby last September in his final start of the year.
Trainer Ron Ellis said on Sunday that War At Sea will be pointed for the Grade 2 Del Mar Mile on turf Sept. 2.
The narrow loss in the turf sprint left Ellis impressed with War At Sea’s comeback.
“I didn’t think he would be able to keep pace with those horses,” he said. “His best distance is a mile and an eighth. That was a good race for him the other day.”