Beholder drills for Breeders' Cup Distaff

ARCADIA, Calif. – Beholder will have one more work before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, but her workout Saturday at Santa Anita was the final major drill, and trainer Richard Mandella turned it into a mini-race.

Beholder worked seven furlongs under jockey Mike Smith at 8 a.m. She broke off behind two workmates, tracked those two until the lane, ran past at the eighth pole, and galloped out a mile in 1:38.

Mandella said he works horses in company “when it’s time for a serious work. She needed a real work.”

“A good horse can work by himself and get nothing out of it,” Mandella added. “Put somebody next to him, and his gut tightens up. That’s what gets them fit. It’s like playing basketball and shooting by yourself – big deal. Let somebody put his hands up in your face and see what happens.”

The workout was the third by Beholder since her three-quarter-length comeback victory Sept. 27 in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes. Her final workout next weekend probably will be in company again but at a shorter distance.

A 10-time winner from 15 starts, Beholder missed much of the season with an injury sustained June 7 at Belmont Park, where she scraped her pastern almost to the bone. She reopened the wound in the summer, missed a week of training, and needed the Zenyatta desperately. She has raced only three times this year.

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Since her comeback win, Beholder has thrived.

“For a filly to run and then gain weight, it means they are doing good,” Mandella said.

Beholder, owned by B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm, is scheduled to be sold at auction this fall.

Beholder is 8 for 9 at Santa Anita, where she won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and the 2013 BC Distaff. She is listed as the 5-2 Distaff favorite by Daily Racing Form.

• Untapable, the Kentucky Oaks winner and currently the co-second favorite for the BC Distaff, is scheduled to work Sunday at Santa Anita for trainer Steve Asmussen.

• Close Hatches, whose four-race win streak ended with a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Spinster at Keeneland on Oct. 5, is stabled at Belmont Park with trainer Bill Mott. She has not worked since the Spinster.

• Don’t Tell Sophia, the upset winner of the Spinster, worked five furlongs Saturday at Keeneland for trainer Phil Sims. Don’t Tell Sophia worked in 1:02.20.

Sims told Keeneland publicity that the work was “good and easy. I am just trying to get her there.”

Don’t Tell Sophia will work once again next Saturday and ship to California the following day, Oct. 26.

• Valiant Emilia came out of her one-mile work Friday in good shape and will be ridden by Rafael Bejarano in the Distaff, trainer Gary Mandella said Saturday. Valiant Emilia, 11 for 23 in Peru, will make her U.S. debut in the Distaff.