Mr Vargas gets the jump on Eddie Haskell and Stormy Liberal in Green Flash Handicap

DEL MAR, Calif. - Mr Vargas took command of Saturday’s Grade 3 Green Flash Handicap for turf sprinters at Del Mar shortly after the start and led throughout the five-furlong turf race to win his stakes debut.

The win was not unexpected by bettors, who made Mr Vargas the 3-1 third choice behind 6-5 Eddie Haskell, the winner of two turf sprint stakes this year, and 2-1 Stormy Liberal, the champion turf male of 2018 who had not raced since March.

Stormy Liberal won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint here in 2017 and at Churchill Downs last year.

Ridden by Joe Talamo, Mr Vargas ($8.40) led by a half-length on the backstretch, by a length on turn, and won by 2 1/4 lengths over Eddie Haskell, finishing in 56.15 seconds. He earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 92.

Talamo said he was focused on keeping Mr Vargas’s mind on the race with two accomplished runners in pursuit.

“When I first dropped over at the half-mile pole, that was the only breather I got,” he said. “They came to me pretty quick. On the turn, I didn’t want to wait around for those two. Down the lane, he was striding out pretty good.”

Mr Vargas set early fractions of 22.44 seconds for the opening quarter-mile and 44.35 for a half-mile.

Eddie Haskell, who had won four of his last five starts, closed from third to finish a half-length in front of Stormy Liberal. Undrafted finished fourth, followed by Calexman and Shades of Victory in the six-horse field.

Eddie Haskell won the Grade 3 Daytona Stakes and Siren Lure Stakes in consecutive starts at Santa Anita in May and June and his first start of this meeting in an allowance race with a $100,000 claiming option on July 24. All of those races were at five furlongs on turf.

Mark Glatt, the trainer of Eddie Haskell, said he hoped Calexman would engage Mr Vargas at the start, but Calexman broke slowly and was not a factor. “We expected a better setup,” he said.

The $100,351 Green Flash Handicap was Stormy Liberal’s first start since a game third behind the brilliant Blue Point in the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai in March. Trainer Peter Miller hopes to have Stormy Liberal in the BC Turf Sprint at Santa Anita on Nov. 2.

Stormy Liberal was in front of Eddie Haskell by a length in early stretch, but could not sustain that position.

“He ran about the way I thought he would – short,” Miller said. “This was not the goal and he ran well.”

Mr Vargas, a 5-year-old gelding by Midshipman, has won 4 of 11 starts and earned $198,185 for Samantha Siegel and trainer Brian Koriner. Mr Vargas has finished first in five races, but was disqualified from an allowance race with a $62,500 claiming option here last summer for a medication violation.