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Beholder runs away with Distaff

Beholder romped in Friday's BC Distaff over her home track of Santa Anita (Wendy Wooley/EquiSport Photos) Spendthrift Farm LLC's Beholder became the first filly to win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and come back the next year to take the Breeders' Cup Distaff on Friday when easily drawing off in the lane for a 4 1/4-length victory over fellow three-year-old Close Hatches in the Grade 1, $1,840,000 Distaff. The 1 1/8-mile contest featured the top three sophomores of 2013 in Beholder, Close Hatches and Princess of Sylmar but a lot of the attention was focused on dual champion Royal Delta seeking her third straight win in the race. Unfortunately, the five-year-old mare just didn't have the same spark as the past two years and began fading before reaching the turn. "She'd worked very well coming into the race. It's hard to say. I thought she was doing well going into the race. She'd worked well," said Bill Mott, Royal Delta's Hall of Fame trainer. "She's had three hard campaigns. I've been very blessed to have a lot of good horses and it's difficult to have more than two good campaigns with any horse. This mare has come back and won Grade 1s this year and I see no reason why she wouldn't be champion older mare. She didn't win the Breeders' Cup, but she's been good to us. She's won two championships and maybe three, and won a couple of Breeders' Cups. It's not a bad career." Authenticity led the way onto the backstretch with Royal Delta staying in close contact to her outside through splits of :22 3/5 and :46 1/5. Close Hatches was just in behind running off the rail while Beholder had taken up a waiting position while four wide to Royal Delta's outside. Heading into the turn, Royal Delta began backing up but Beholder was still on cruise control under jockey Gary Stevens. The duo hit the front rounding the turn, with Stevens showing his mount the whip to keep her on alert for any late runners. Nobody was closing, though, and Beholder provided flashbacks to her Juvenile Fillies win a year ago when crossing under the wire in 1:47 3/5 over the fast main track.

"We trained her this way (to run from off the pace.) We've just never had to use it before," trainer Richard Mandella said of his normally front-running filly's stalking trip. "She's so naturally fast, you don't have to train that into her and she's made the lead so easily in many of her races.

"Today, she had to come from off of it and she did it -- and boy do I love it. I've been lucky enough to have many good mares in my years of training, but this mare might have to be the best of all."

"She was a little fractious going into the gate and a little anxious. I was afraid she might over-break but she settled and broke beautiful," explained Stevens, who was earning his first Breeders' Cup victory since 2000 following a seven-year retirement from the saddle. "This is the best race she's ever run. I was hoping that Authenticity would carry the lead a little farther but (Beholder) moved up nice, went by her easy and the really opened up."

Sent off the 5-2 third choice in the short, but talented, field of six, Beholder returned $7.60 for the win. In the process, she improved her mark to 8-4-0 from 12 career starts and has banked $3,075,000 in lifetime earnings.

Close Hatches came in second, 1 3/4 lengths in front of Authenticity. Royal Delta was another 2 1/4 lengths behind in fourth, with 41-1 longshot Street Girl finishing 3 1/4 lengths in front of last-placer Princess of Sylmar.

"The pace always has something to do with it. If they let us go on the lead all by ourselves, sure, that makes a difference," Mott said in reference to the pace that developed. "This year it looks like they sent Authenticity pretty good for a good reason, Maybe they accomplished what they needed to.

"I think Gary (on Beholder) had the plan to wait and make a little run. She did and his filly ran a tremendous race."

"She didn't have it today. No spark, man. Early on, I knew it," jockey Mike Smith remarked following Royal Delta's fourth. "She usually takes the race to somebody, but not today. I thought when Beholder come up to her, she would pick it up, but she didn't. I asked and I asked and nothing. I'm kind of dumbfounded."

Beholder gave Stevens his first BC winner since War Chant in the 2000 BC Mile (Charles Bernhardt/Horsephotos.com) Beholder has finished worse than second only once in her career, with that coming in her 2012 debut at Hollywood Park when fourth. The Henny Hughes filly captured her next start after being shipped to Del Mar, then just missed by a nose in her stakes bow in the Del Mar Debutante. Mandella would race his charge just once more before sending her to the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, but that resulted in an 11-length allowance victory going six furlongs at Santa Anita. Beholder easily answered the distance question in last year's Juvenile Fillies, stretching out to 1 1/16 miles for the first time when coasting home an easy winner. The bay miss was given a few months off before returning in the Santa Ynez, but finished second that day while suffering from a throat ulcer. Her ailment cleared up, Beholder proceeded to romp in the Las Virgenes and Santa Anita Oaks before facing Princess of Sylmar for the first time in the Kentucky Oaks. That would be the Kentucky-bred filly's first foray outside of California, and Beholder reputed herself well when leading by two lengths in the Churchill Downs stretch. She appeared headed for the winner's circle, but just could not withstand Princess of Sylmar's late run and round up finishing second by a half-length. With the Breeders' Cup at his home track of Santa Anita for a second straight year, Mandella immediately began planning for the Distaff. The conditioner gave Beholder the rest of the summer off, not bringing her back until Del Mar's Torrey Pines on September 1. She wired that mile event before taking Santa Anita's local prep for the Distaff, the Zenyatta, 27 days later to prepare for her tour de force on Friday.

By winning the Distaff, Beholder has re-opened the question of who is the top three-year-old filly.

Leading up to the Breeders' Cup, Princess of Sylmar would have been the automatic answer with wins in the Kentucky Oaks, Coaching Club American Oaks, Alabama and Beldame Invitational to her credit. Now, the two sophomores are even in terms of beating each other and Beholder captured the year-end championship.

"(Princess of Sylmar) kind of stumbled leaving the starting gate and broke out awkwardly and kind of went down a little bit," said that filly's trainer, Todd Pletcher. "She came away well last, not exactly where you want to be on this track for sure. (Jockey Javier Castellano) said she didn't get over the track at all and struggled with the surface throughout."

"She stumbled really bad at the gate," Castellano stated.

"I blame the track. It's all speed, speed, speed and unfair to come-from-behind horses," he added. "Unfortunately, she didn't handle the track at all. She was spinning her wheels. Usually at the half-mile pole, she pulls, and today she didn't pull at all."

Bred by Clarkland Farm, Beholder came to B. Wayne Hughes' Spendthrift Farm as an $180,000 Keeneland September yearling. She is out of the stakes-winning Tricky Creek mare Leslie's Lady, making her a half-sister to Grade 1-scoring sire Into Mischief. This is the same female family as yet another Grade 1-winning stallion in Roanoke.

Beholder's fifth dam is Patelin, from whom is descended the likes of champion Pleasant Stage as well as Grade 1 scorers A Phenomenon, Seattle Meteor, Marsh Side, Pillaster and Classy Play.

Click here for a post-race transcript featuring Hughes, Mandella and Stevens.

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