Years before they skyrocketed to sports stardom with the purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979, the Buss family, consisting at the time of Jerry, then-wife JoAnn, and children Johnny, Jim, Jeanie and Janie, were just another family spending the hot summer months where the turf meets the surf.“My parents had a summer house at Del Mar,” Janie Buss remembered of her childhood in California. “So every summer, we would go there. My parents were [gamblers]. We would go to Torrey Pines Beach in the morning, then go back home, shower and change because we had to make it back for first post at Del Mar. It was usually [my brother] Jimmy and I, and we would play all over the track. I came across [other kids] there around my age because our parents would drag us all out. The front of Del Mar was a little grass area with some kind of bouncy chairs, and we'd get all the other kids together on those chairs and have little horse races amongst ourselves.”An independent child eager to seek out adventure, Janie quickly found her way from the front side to the backstretch.“I learned at six years old that I could take the tram,” she said. “Mom was very into the racing form and the horses, and she's not watching over me, so I'd get on the tram that goes onto the backstretch. I thought that was the coolest thing. It was like the monorail to Disneyland. And while I waited for the tram, [trainer] Charles Whittingham's barn was right across the way and all the pony horses were tied up on a fence there. So at six or seven years old, I became friends with all the pony riders. I'd beg them, 'can I please sit on your horse?'”“This was the early 70s, or late 60s. I'd take the monorail to the back and just get off wherever I felt like I wanted to go that day. The horses were all looking at him because yes, it's race time, but it's also their afternoon time where no one's really walking around. And I probably shouldn't have done it but I would go where they keep the horse feed and grab a handful of grain. My hands were little, but this is probably why they have detention stalls now!”It was there, on the backstretch of old Del Mar, that a love for horses blossomed into a passion that led Janie from bouncy chair races to a successful show-horse career, even as her role within the Lakers organization under her father grew and life began to pull her away from horses.“I showed both quarter horses and paint horses [as I got older],” Janie said of her continued love for all things equestrian sport. “I competed and at one point was top-10 in the country. I started out English, but then I got a job exercising polo ponies at Will Rogers State Historic Park, which unfortunately burned down in the Palisades Fire [in Jan. 2025]. My parents allowed me to buy a horse and I ended up buying a ex polo pony. He had no papers but I worked with him and we went to little shows until eventually I became more and more serious about it. I went into the APHA [American Paint Horse Association] and Pinto shows. They were also a bit easier, like a [basketball] G League. My greatest accomplishment was getting a brown ribbon [eighth place] at the Fort Worth, Texas show in the APHA championship, because I had worked so hard to get there with my horse. But by then, I had gotten married, divorced, remarried and pregnant so I had to give up that show career where you're chasing points all over [the country].”Janie Buss (fourth from left) celebrates a 2026 Lakers playoff run | courtesy Janie BussFour years after the death of her father in 2013, Janie, whose family trust retains a 16% share in the Lakers after selling their majority stake in late 2025 for a record approximate valuation of $10 billion, finally brought her love of the horse full circle, opening a California-based boutique racing operation called Purple Rein Racing.“I got a chance to buy into a horse, I want to say it was Air Vice Marshal (War Front) who was my first horse,” Janie said. “It was him and True Valor (Yes It's True), those were the two horses that I first had back in 2017. I don't even know if I owned them 100%. I may have owned only 10% at the time. And that's kind of how it started. And then it kept snowballing to the point where I needed to seriously think about what I was doing. I thought, 'I don't need to be in 10%' because a lot of times, when you're in a group, you get out-voted.”“I made the decision at that time that I wasn't going to be partners with anybody. That I wanted to own my own horses 100%. I want to be able to control whether, if I think they're sore or if they're feeling off, what happens. I'm not a veterinarian and I don't pretend to be one. I'm not trying to control anyone else. I'm just going to do everything in the horse's best interest. So if I feel like something is wrong, I'm going to say something. Horse racing, for me, is not a business. I know there are people trying [to make it one]. I met a guy with over 200 horses and I had to ask him, 'Do you even know what they look like?' And he says, 'Oh no, they're in and out and here and there.' And I don't want to be that person.”Now teamed up with another California kid in Mark Davis (known for campaigning the likes of MGISW Raging Torrent {Maximus Mischief}), Janie Buss purchased a pair of 2-year-olds at the OBS March Sale earlier this year. Both juveniles have joined the Purple Rein string in Doug O'Neill's barn.“I have the best partner now, Mark Davis,” Janie said. “We're on the same page. Whatever he wants, whatever I want. We're the best partners ever and we're going to take over the horse-racing world. What I appreciate about horse racing is that we're a team. [Trainer] Doug O'Neill says that, its 'Team O'Neill'. I recognize [everyone who is responsible for the horses] because it does take a team to get a horse to the track in its best condition.”Of course, Purple Rein is a fun play on the 1984 Prince classic 'Purple Rain', which Buss says was a soundtrack to her life shortly after the Laker's won their first championship under her father's ownership in 1980.“I knew when I started racing that I didn't just want to be Janie Buss; I wanted to start a racing stable. And my dad bought the team [the Los Angeles Lakers] in 1979. That 1980 season, they won the championship,” Buss said. “And sometime right after that [in 1984], Prince came out with that song, 'Purple Rain', which was a number-one hit. It felt like my childhood kind of coming together, and I'm paying it back now. So, just like my foundation, it's spelled r-e-i-n instead of r-a-i-n. And I thought it was a perfect fit, Purple Rein Racing.”'TDN Rising Star' He Is No Lie | BenoitThe stable continues its nods to both Prince and to 80s Laker's culture with its purple nose bands and vibrant purple and gold silks, something Buss insisted on despite some initial push back from both O'Neill and jockeys.“Doug [O'Neill] has red nose bands and when I had my first horse run, I asked Doug if I could have the nose band be purple,” Buss said. “And he says, 'Red is because you can see it easier.' But I said, 'I don't care.' So Doug is probably thinking, 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?' I had a horse running at Gulfstream and something happened, the silks got lost on their way there and I had to order new ones. I called the silks girl who had done them previously and she figured I wanted to make them the same. But I thought 'No, I need a little more pizzazz.' I asked her if she'd ever seen a Lakers game and she had. If you go to a game, you see the Lakers Girls [dancers] a lot and their outfits are glittery, but not over the top. So I asked the silks girl, 'Can we do flashier? Something that has a little more pizzazz than anybody else has?'”“She went to the fashion mart and sent me a photo of the perfect Michael Jackson, Prince, 80's Lakers Girls fabric, and that's what I got. It's a shiny material that's very flashy but [jockey] Antonio Fresu told me that [the fabric] doesn't breathe. So I think every jockey that puts on my silks probably curses me.”Purple Rein Racing, in all its pizzazz, is far from an ordinary racing stable. Though small (Buss numbers it humorously at 12.5 horses), the operation is mighty, with 100% of the winnings earned donated to charity.“When I got my first win, and I got maybe $7,500. I thought, 'I'm not going to put this against [my horse's] bills,” Buss said. “I can take care of my horses. I decided I wanted to donate it. I went on Facebook and asked my friends. And I honestly didn't think anybody was really going to answer. You should have seen the responses I got! Fast forward about a year and I won some good money with JB Strikes Back (Goldencents). It was something like $60,000. So again, I asked my friends, but this time I said, 'Let me know which charities [they] personally support'. I didn't want just somebody to pick out one because it was [a big name] or the only one they could think of.”Rather than supporting just one or two charities, Buss opted to spread the literal wealth, making sizable donations to no fewer than at least ten individuals organizations.“I'm in a position where I can really make charity dollars work,” said Buss. “I support so many things: veterans, animals, food insecurity and, in racing, the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, thoroughbred aftercare and Old Friends. Just last year, I donated $2.5 million to charity. And not that my horses won that much, because they certainly didn't, but I included them in it. And that money went to places like St. Judes, Make A Wish, the Los Angeles Food Bank, the Ronald McDonald House, the Children's Hospital of L.A. County, etc. I donate because I have that opportunity and because I'm trying to build something. I'm not looking for my name on a marquee or something. I just want people to know that, not only do I care about my horses and they get taken such good care of, but that the money that they win, I donate and I do something better with it. And I take care of the people on the backstretch who work so hard to keep these horses because it's not easy. It's hours a day, seven days a week.”In addition to Purple Rein Racing, Buss has been hard at work with another fun play on words in her new foundation set to open later this year.Janie Buss with one of her horses, JB Strikes Back | courtesy Janie Buss“My new foundation [will be] called Handed The Reins. And that's a tribute to dad, because of his philanthropic work, and to my mother, who was just as much a part of the Lakers as my dad was,” Buss said. “They both have passed and so I'm handed the reins now. [It's] a private organization which I'm funding. Money off of interest will go into that and I can also make contributions of all of my horses winnings into that fund.”And those two OBS March juveniles? One, a Mandaloun filly purchased for $290,000 from the Wavertree Stables consignment, continues the fun wordplay as Buss titled her, Janie Not Jeanie, a nod to Janie's sister who maintains her role as Governor of the Los Angeles Lakers.The other, a colt from the first crop of Early Voting named He Is No Lie, became Purple Rein Racing's first 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' when he romped home in a maiden special weight race at Santa Anita May 15.“What was so impressive to me about He Is No Lie's first race was not just that he won but how professional he was. We just bought him in March [at OBS] for $150,000. And through that whole race, he never gave up his professionalism,” Buss said. “Even once he had a [big] lead.”And while Buss was thrilled to see the win, it was the $39,000 He Is No Lie earned in that effort, now earmarked to improve the lives of others, that Buss appreciates the most.“Unfortunately, my dad passed away [in 2013] but he gave me a blessing. He loved horse racing. I want to make my parents proud. Not just my dad, but my mom had a lot to do with this too,” Buss said. “My dad and I, we would talk a lot about charity because that was my responsibility within the [Lakers] company. I don't have his guidance anymore, but he instilled that [philanthropy] in me. I'm proving it on this little racehorse journey that I'm on. It's about doing the right thing and putting your team together because the people around you are what make you a champion. Don't ever forget how you got where you are. I really hope that I can make a difference.”The post “I Can Make A Difference”: Janie Buss Builds A Purple And Gold Legacy All Her Own With Purple Rein Racing appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.