2015 Eclipse Award Champion Older Female

May 9 - Beholder

This filly would go on to be one of the great iron horses of the track by winning stakes races over the course of five different annual campaigns. Not only did she win stakes races, but she took home the Eclipse Award for her group in four of those years.

Hold that thought for a moment.

We were publishing the book, A Brush With Greatness, and one of the fun components is that we acquired quotes on each of the 79 horses in the book from their connections: an owner, a breeder, or a trainer. I approached Wayne Hughes at the Spendthrift party. Beholder had just won her first Eclipse Award and was at that moment listed for the upcoming sale. She was good. She was a Grade 1 winner, but her career was relatively brief at that point. Mr. Hughes was standing with trainer Richard Mandella who had handled the filly perfectly. Hughes looked at Mandella and then back at me, "She's the greatest filly of all-time." He paused and nodded, "Yep, that's it - the greatest filly of all time."

That was the nightmare that Ed Bowen and I had feared. We were sure that we might get that quote 79 times about 79 different horses from each of their owners, but this was it, the one time . mentioned it to Eric Gustavson and Ned Toffey who ran the day-to-day stuff. Their eyes got as big as saucers. They said that they'd come up with something a little more user-friendly for the book - and they did.

When the book came out, Ned reached out to me to tell me that Mr. Hughes was going around the office showing off the book as something amazing, no mention that his quote might not be exactly what he told me.

Later, Beholder would be removed from the sale and continue racing for Spendthrift. As mentioned, she raced year after year, banking over $6 million along with her stash of Eclipse trophies.

You know, in retrospect after her racing career was over, maybe Mr. Hughes' extravagant claim that Beholder was the greatest filly of all time might not have been as much of a stretch as it sounded when she was three years old.

Greatness in a racehorse can usually be measured in one division and one season; Beholder simply ran out of divisions to dominate. A bay mare foaled in 2010 in Kentucky and bred by Clarkland Farm, she was sired by Henny Hughes, the brilliant champion sprinter, out of the Tricky Creek mare Leslie's Lady — a broodmare whose own quiet name now sits in the pedigrees of giants, since the same mare also produced the leading sire Into Mischief and Grade 1 winner Mendelssohn. Bought as a yearling for $180,000 and sent to Richard Mandella to train for Spendthrift Farm's B. Wayne Hughes, she would in time make every dollar of that purchase look like an underbid.

Her career reads as a near-impossible run of brilliance across five seasons. As a two-year-old in 2012 she won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) at Santa Anita and was named Champion Two-Year-Old Filly. At three she won the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) and was named Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. She was sidelined for much of her four-year-old season, then came back at five for arguably the finest year of her career: she beat colts by 8¼ lengths in the Pacific Classic (G1) at Del Mar, becoming the first female ever to win that race, won three other Grade 1s, and earned Champion Older Mare honors for 2015. With those titles she became the first horse since Forego in 1976 — male or female — to win Grade 1 stakes at ages two, three, four, and five.

Then, in November 2016 at Santa Anita, came her farewell and the race that came to define her: the Breeders' Cup Distaff against the previously unbeaten phenom Songbird. The two mares ran head-to-head down the entire stretch, neither yielding an inch, and Beholder hit the wire a nose in front in what is widely regarded as one of the greatest Breeders' Cup races ever run. The score made her only the second horse, after Goldikova, to win three Breeders' Cup races, and it closed her racing career at 18 wins from 26 starts and earnings of $6,156,600. She was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 2024 and is now a producer at Spendthrift, where her foals — including a Curlin filly that drew immediate attention — carry forward both her own legacy and that of her remarkable family.

Sources:

• Beholder (horse) — Wikipedia

• Beholder — Hall of Champions, Breeders' Cup

• Beholder by a nose over Songbird in thrilling Breeders' Cup Distaff — DRF

• A Look Back at Beholder's Championship Career — America's Best Racing

• Champion Beholder Delivers Curlin Filly — BloodHorse