Beholder to get rest, then prepare for 2016 campaign

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Beholder, who on Thursday was scratched from Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, was scheduled to fly back to California on Sunday and will race next year, trainer Richard Mandella said at Keeneland on Friday.

“She’ll have six to eight weeks off, and then we’ll get her ready,” Mandella said, adding that Beholder’s main goal in 2016 will be the Breeders’ Cup, to be run at Santa Anita, where Beholder won the Juvenile Fillies in 2012 and the Distaff in 2013.

“I know how to find my way there,” Mandella said.

Beholder walked the shed row at Barn 60 on Friday morning at Keeneland and acted alert and bright both then and after being put back into her stall.

“If we hadn’t scoped her, we wouldn’t have known anything was wrong, and we would have run,” Mandella said.

Beholder had a high temperature upon arrival here the previous week, and Mandella kept checking her, wanting to make sure she was indeed fine. Up until Thursday morning, she had passed all exams. But after her routine morning gallop Thursday, an endoscopic examination by veterinarian Mark Cheney found traces of blood in her trachea and irritation in her lungs, Mandella said.

“Obviously, because of what happened last week, we kept checking and checking,” Mandella said. “Obviously, her lungs are inflamed somewhat. If we’d have run, we’d have put more pressure on those lungs. She’d have bled and not run any good and caused a lot more damage. It was an easy decision to scratch.”