LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Beholder just might race again next year. First, though, comes what could be the most daunting challenge a filly or mare has ever faced, Saturday's $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic, in which she'll take on a Triple Crown winner and a European champion.
"Sometimes you have to reach up there for the gold ring," her Hall of Fame trainer, Richard Mandella, said about the decision to enter Beholder in the Classic rather than the Distaff, in which she would have been the odds-on favorite to defeat a solid field of fillies and mares. But in the Classic she'll take on nine males, including Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh and European champion Gleneagles, as well as Honor Code and Tonalist, the leading candidates to be this season's champion older dirt male for North America.
How good is Beholder, how talented and accomplished? Since the early 1970s, when stakes were first assigned grades to indicate the quality of competition, Beholder is the only horse to win a Grade 1 stakes at 2, 3, 4 and 5. The only horse. Already she has won two of the sport's championship races, the Juvenile Fillies in 2012 and the Distaff in 2013; and with a win in the Classic, she would become the first horse ever to win three Breeders' Cup races. In other words, she's here at Keeneland on her way to the Hall of Fame, and it's both fair and reasonable to speak of her in the context of greatness. Beholder, in fact, ranks right up there with two of the greatest distaff performers of recent years who also happen to be two of the most revered and celebrated horses of the modern era: Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta.
Rachel Alexandra was both brilliant and dazzling as a 3-year-old in 2009, winning all eight of her starts and defeating males three times, including older horses in the Woodward and the Kentucky Oaks by more than 20 lengths. But she wasn't nearly as effective the next year, winning two of her five races. Zenyatta, the Amazon who was so fabulously popular with so many fans, won a Grade 1 race at 4, 5 and 6, defeating males in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Classic over Santa Anita's synthetic surface. But Beholder has raced successfully at the sport's highest level for four consecutive years, and her dominating victory over males in the Pacific Classic was arguably a better performance than any of Zenyatta's victories. And Beholder has been admirably versatile, winning from 5 1/2 furlongs to 1 1/4 miles. So that's how good, how talented and how accomplished Beholder is: She's one of the greats.
Still, her owner, B. Wayne Hughes, with a candid reasonableness that's rare in racing, said American Pharoah, the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, should win Horse of the Year. "He's the champ," Hughes said. "It's only right."
A billionaire businessman who's typically dispassionate when it comes to making decisions about his Spendthrift Farm and his horses, Hughes said Beholder is the first horse he's ever owned that profoundly stirred his emotions and whose association made him proud. He said he'd like to bring her back to race again next year, but only if she's perfectly sound and healthy.
"Everyone's enjoying her and enjoying watching her race," Hughes said. "I think we tend to retire horses pretty early and that hurts racing. ... I think [longer careers] are good for racing, and if she could race next year that would be good for racing. She would have to be perfect, though."
Beholder got in her final preparatory workout Monday morning, breezing five-eighths of a mile in 59.40 seconds on the official stopwatch. With exercise rider Janeen Painter aboard, Beholder began slowly, running the first furlong in 12.32 seconds on this watch. Without encouragement, Beholder steadily gained momentum, running the final quarter-mile in 23.40 seconds and galloping out an additional furlong to complete three-quarters of a mile in 1:12.80.
"It was just maintenance," Mandella said about the move. "Testing the water. And the water looked good."
Immediately after the workout, Mandella hurried back to the barn to consult with Hughes and check on the champion. Prone to nervousness and anxiety, Beholder hasn't taken her best on the road with her in the past. In her first race outside of California, she had a meltdown before the Kentucky Oaks, in which amazingly enough, she still finished second. She had similar difficulties the next year when traveling to New York for the Ogden Phipps Stakes and finished fourth.
In an effort to forestall such problems, Mandella brought Beholder here two weeks early. With her from California came the pony Raul, her frequent companion, as well as her regular exercise rider. And since getting over a mild case of shipping fever when she first arrived, Beholder seems to have settled in nicely at Keeneland. After Monday's workout, she had an endoscopic examination that revealed nothing, no mucus, no blood, no problem. She's ready for American Pharoah.
Before the Pacific Classic, explaining the decision to run Beholder against males, Mandella said he thought Beholder "could beat anybody." From some trainers, such a statement would have smacked of brash foolishness. But this was from Mandella, who once won four Breeders' Cup races in a day and who has provided throughout his career a voice of reasoned intelligence and insight. Privately, he and Hughes, as well as Beholder's jockey, Gary Stevens, even hoped American Pharoah would enter the Del Mar race.
American Pharoah, of course, ran instead in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, finishing second. Beholder romped, winning by more than eight lengths at Del Mar in what was the best performance in North America this year. Beholder always had commanded respect, always had been highly regarded and respected. But that victory catapulted her into another conversation. It redefined her as one of the modern era's great ones, the only horse to win a Grade 1 race at 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Now she has traveled here to Keeneland to take on the Triple Crown winner and a European champion. She could easily win the Distaff, but what would that prove? That she's the best mare around? That assertion requires no further proof; a Distaff win would be tautological. She's here for a challenge, perhaps the most formidable challenge any filly or mare has ever faced. For that alone, she and her connections should hear a roar of respect from the sport and its fans. American Pharoah might be Horse of the Year, but Beholder is the indisputable queen.