KINGSTON, Jamaica - The Vincent Atkinson-conditioned bay colt Rhythm Buzz gave an encouraging performance to gain victory in the Sir Mohandas Baba/Major Mayer Maiden Special Weight contest for native-bred three year olds on Sunday, March 19, 2023.
Going two turns at nine furlongs and 25 yards, Rhythm Buzz sat just behind the early pace for most of the way, but produced a telling effort coming off the final turn to win going away by 2 ¼ lengths in an encouraging time of 1:59.4 (27.3 x 52.0 x 1:17.2 x 1:44.1).
Rhythm Buzz sat in fifth place behind Antarctica (Trevor Simpson), Roaring Thunder (Raddesh Roman), Modern Miracle (Youville Pinnock), and Manoushe (Dane Dawkins) going around the clubhouse turn and onto the main track.
Jockey Andre Powell urged Rhythm Buzz down the backstretch, and the bay colt quickly slipped down into third place behind Antarctica and Modern Miracle, heading towards the 5-furlong mark. The writing was already on the wall when Rhythm Buzz moved down into second place and went in pursuit of Antarctica approaching in the distance.
With a couple of change of holds and cracks from the whip, Rhythm Buzz turned on the pressure in deep stretch and powered his way home easily in the end. Antarctica had nothing left in his tank to answer the call from Rhythm Buzz and had to settle for second place as Manoushe finished in third place.
With that manner of victory, Rhythm Buzz crept into the pool of runners with the possibility of making it into the Classics later this year.
“I always figured that he [Rhythm Buzz] was like his brother Stomp The Rhythm, who loves two turn races. They love two turns, and I guess that they got that from the mare. He is a big horse with long strides, so I know he would get there,” Atkinson said.
“Maybe with another horse up front, we would probably have a problem, but with the leader, Antarctica, I didn’t think he would have gone too far because of the breeding. He [Powell] rode the horse several times before, and so I just told him to go and win the race.
“We will just keep going and see how far he [Rhythm Buzz] is able to go, and we are hopeful we can get somewhere in some of the bigger races that come. Let’s see where he takes us,” Atkinson said.
Rhythm Buzz is a three-year-old bay colt bred by Buzz Nightmare out of the War Chant mare River Rhythm.
