High expectations for Beholder in Clement Hirsch

DEL MAR, Calif. – The standard of excellence for Beholder is so high that there is only one outcome of the 2015 season that will satisfy trainer Richard Mandella. She must be champion older female.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Mandella said last weekend.

The 5-year-old Beholder was honored as the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 and champion 3-year-old filly of 2013. Last year, illness and injury prevented her from a full campaign and a chance to win the title of champion older female. Mandella believes she can be a champion again this year, a season in which she is unbeaten in two lesser stakes.

On Saturday, Beholder starts in the $300,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes for fillies and mares, the top race for the division at the Del Mar summer meeting. The Grade 1 Hirsch is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Keeneland on Oct. 30.

The BC Distaff almost always plays a pivotal role in championship voting, and getting to that race is the goal for owner B. Wayne Hughes and Mandella. From what he has seen in recent training, Mandella expects a win Saturday.

“She’s back to par,” he said.

For Beholder, par translates into winning consistently – and at the highest level. In her 17-race career, she has won 12 races, including 10 stakes, and earned $3,476,600. At Santa Anita alone, she won the 2012 BC Juvenile Fillies, 2013 BC Distaff, and four other Grade 1 races.

Beholder will bring a three-race winning streak into the Hirsch, a span of races that began last September in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita. The campaign was meant to include a start in the BC Distaff last November, but Beholder missed the race because of a lung infection.

The illness changed Beholder’s life. Instead of being offered at an autumn sale in Kentucky, Hughes, on consultation from Mandella, opted to keep her in training.

“They accepted it when I said she won’t run” in the Breeders’ Cup, Mandella said. “After we X-rayed her lungs and saw that they were inflamed, there was no reason to put her under stress and try to ship her. There was never a discussion about it. We decided we’ll try again next year.”

After recuperating at a local farm, Beholder was back in training with Mandella by the start of this year. She won the restricted Santa Lucia Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths on April 10 at Santa Anita, but missed a scheduled start in the Grade 1 Vanity Stakes on May 9 because of an elevated temperature.

Again, that changed her campaign. Without a race in the Vanity, there was no trip to New York for the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 6 at Belmont Park. Instead, Beholder won the Grade 3 Adoration Stakes at Santa Anita a week later.

“She did the same thing she always does,” Mandella said. “She showed she’s pretty good.”

The May illness was not considered a major concern.

“When she had a temperature and missed the Vanity, the whole barn was snotty,” Mandella said. “It didn’t turn out to be much. Sometimes things work out for the better, that’s what you have to look at.”

The Hirsch Stakes at 1 1/16 miles will be Beholder’s first start at Del Mar since an easy win in the Torrey Pines Stakes in 2013. Saturday’s race would likely lead to a start in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes on Sept. 26 at Santa Anita.

By then, Beholder could be atop the national division.

“She can put herself back with a couple of good moves, and I think that’s coming,” Mandella said. “I’ll try to take care of her and have her as good as I can have her at the end of October.”