Beholder Misses Training Due to Fever
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Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt
Beholder
Champion racemare Beholder missed her first day of training for the Oct. 31 Breeders' Cup Classic (gr. I) at Keeneland Oct. 20, when she spiked a slight temperature after shipping from California to Kentucky Oct. 19.
Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella said the 5-year-old daughter of Henny Hughes had a temperature of 101.3, while "her normal is 100.3."
Beholder, winner of the 2012 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) and the 2013 Breeders' Cup Distaff (gr. I) missed last year's Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff with a fever; she was found to have a mild lung infection at that time but recovered after two months on the sidelines.
"It's not a high temperature; sometimes when you ship them they do have a little temperature," Mandella said. "We'll just have to watch and see."
The Spendthrift Farm runner flew via Tex Sutton and arrived at Keeneland Monday afternoon and was bedded down in Barn 60 on Rice Road for her upcoming showdown with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the Classic. Mandella's team notified him of the temperature around 6:15 a.m. EDT the following morning. He had been planning to send Beholder out around 7:15 a.m. for her first trip over the Lexington track.
"It's not big but with horses, it scares us," the trainer said. "We are concerned but we're hoping that it's no big deal, but we won't know today... we can't figure it out in five minutes. But we're not going to do anything with her today. The veterinarian will be here and look at her, he'll take her blood and we'll see what her blood count shows... it's not good. Whether it's the real thing or not, we won't know for a little while."
This season the two-time Eclipse Award winner has run through five races undefeated, including an 8 1/4-length romp against the boys in the Aug. 22 TVG Pacific Classic (gr. I), and she carries a six-race win streak dating back to last September into the Breeders' Cup.
On the day of her arrival at Keeneland, Mandella talked about the illness Beholder battled when she missed last year's Distaff and, as a result, was not sent through the auction ring as her connections originally planned.
"When we turned her out, her x-rays of her lungs showed a lot of inflammation but no specific pneumatic areas," he said. "Just inflammation, which is one step short of really being in trouble. And when he took (x-rays) two months later, they were gone.
"There's good and bad to everything. That was a bad situation. It looked like we had a pretty nice chance at the Distaff. But it's horse racing, these are horses, so you can't let something like that end your world; you have to expect things like that. As much as she's done for us, we're not going to hold it against her that she stubbed her toe that day, or any other day."
UPDATES:
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