Beholder Goes Out a Champion, Earns Fourth Eclipse

The only thing Spendthrift Farm’s Beholder had left to chase last year was her own legacy.

Already a multiple Breeders’ Cup winner, Eclipse Award champion, and future first-ballot Hall of Famer, the daughter of Henny Hughes was sent on a 6-year-old campaign solely because she refused to give any indication she had lost her sustained brilliance.

Facing some of her toughest challengers ever—as well as questions over whether she had lost a step—“Queen B” wrapped up her racing days in a manner as fantastical as her 26-race career, delivering one more master class performance and earning a fourth Eclipse Award, this one for champion older dirt female of 2016.

Beholder was previously honored as champion older female in 2015 and earned divisional hardware at ages 2 and 3 in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

In her final year in training, the bay mare went through a wringer that ultimately allowed her to showcase as much mettle as she had ever put forth. After winning the Adoration Stakes (G3) in her seasonal bow in May, Beholder became the first horse in North American history to win grade I contests at ages 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 when she captured the June 4 Vanity Mile Stakes (G1) over fellow champion Stellar Wind.

BALAN: Beholder Dominates Again at Santa Anita

What followed was the first “downturn” of Beholder’s career, when she suffered consecutive losses for the first time. Stellar Wind narrowly bettered her in both the Clement L. Hirsch Stakes (G1) and Zenyatta Stakes (G1). Sandwiched between those defeats was a runner-up effort to champion California Chrome   in the Aug. 20 TVG Pacific Classic Stakes (G1) at Del Mar.

Heading into the Nov. 4 Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1), Beholder not only was no longer the undisputed ruler of the older distaff ranks but had an heir threatening her mantle in the then unbeaten 3-year-old filly Songbird. When Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens asked his mount one last time for her best in the Distaff, Beholder responded by going eyeball to eyeball with Songbird down the Santa Anita Park stretch, refusing to give way and give up her crown as she got her nose down at the wire to earn her third career Breeders’ Cup victory.

BALAN: Beholder Noses Out Songbird in BC Distaff

“I think in the immediate aftermath we were just thinking of how unique her career has been,” said Ned Toffey, manager of B. Wayne Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm. “You think about other sports and think about people in the Hall of Fame, and very often they have careers where they were good over a long period of time or brilliant over a shorter period of time. She did both. She was brilliant over a long period of time.”