Hovdey: Beholder chases boys and history

It wasn’t exactly the upset that rocked the world, but when Arabian Queen and her modest résumé defeated British superstar Golden Horn in the Juddmonte International at York on Wednesday, horse trainers of a certain status took the results very much to heart.

Bob Baffert, for his part, hated to see it happen. The sight of a superior 3-year-old colt dumped rudely from atop a hard-earned pedestal cuts close to the heart of the man who shapes the racetrack destiny of American Pharoah.

Richard Mandella, on the other hand, frankly enjoyed the drama of a filly beating a colt in a race of such grand proportions. This was not an idle thought. Mandella will have skin in the game and history in mind on Saturday at Del Mar, where the $1 million Pacific Classic will be run at 1 1/4 miles over a dirt course for the first time since 2006.

Mandella took a breather from winning the Classic during the synthetic years. By then, he had already won three of them, with Pleasantly Perfect in 2004, Gentlemen in 1997, and Dare and Go in 1996, when Cigar came to town on a 16-race winning streak. Mandella’s runners also finished second in the Classic four times and third once, which tends to give him positive swing thoughts whenever he takes aim at the event.

This time around, the trainer will send forth Beholder for owner Wayne Hughes and her cadre of doting followers, led by fanboy Gary Stevens. On a more conventional note, Mandella also will saddle the rock-steady South American Catch a Flight, already a three-time stakes winner this season.

It will be Beholder, though, who will hog the spotlight, and rightfully so. Already twice a champion, she will try to become the first female Thoroughbred to win the Pacific Classic. (A female jockey already did it, I’m told.) This sounds good, but it is not statistically breathtaking since the Classic has been run only since 1991, and only four other mares have started in the race.

Still, horse racing exists in a gender-obsessed culture, and the thought of a “girl” beating a “boy” at anything short of a Betty Crocker cook-off gives pundits the Southern-fried vapors. Beholder has never faced males before, although Mandella toyed with running her in the short-lived Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Sprint in 2012 before opting for the Juvenile Fillies. Since then, in a career interrupted by freak injury and poorly timed illness, Beholder has had ample chances to face the best females around and has come away with a record of 13 wins in 18 starts.

Mandella is a student of history. He knows the yellowed pages of racing lore are full of tough mares beating males often enough to earn a reputation beyond their division. The necessary names on the shortlist include Imp, Pan Zareta, Gallorette, Honeymoon, Busher, Twilight Tear, Two Lea, Ta Wee, Shuvee, and Affectionately.

My first close encounter with one of these rare birds was at Hollywood Park in 1968, when Gamely, who was built like the side of a sturdy barn, took on Dr. Fager in the Californian. Just about every good older horse in the West teed it up that day, including Rising Market, Kissin George, and Proud Land. They all gave frustrating chase to The Doctor, then Gamely went by them all to be a solid second. Three weeks later, Gamely came right back to beat Rising Market in the Inglewood Handicap. In 1980, she was added to the Hall of Fame.

Thus, the bar was set, at least for this racing fan. If you were as good as Gamely, you could go toe-to-toe with just about anything. Drumtop beat grass males often, including Fort Marcy in the 1971 Hialeah Turf Cup. Dahlia transferred her gender-bending European form to win the 1976 Hollywood Turf Invitational. Dulcia, the pride of Argentina, won the National Thoroughbred Championship of 1975, the precursor to the Breeders’ Cup Classic, over a field that included Holding Pattern, Ancient Title, Forceten, and Royal Glint.

No one can deny that the past 30 years have been more fun because Estrapade won the Arlington Million, Personal Ensign and Lady’s Secret won the Whitney, Rachel Alexandra and Havre de Grace won the Woodward, and Zenyatta won the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Can you blame Mandella for wanting to get in on the act, even if he is a little late to the party?

“I think I beat colts once with a filly,” he said, staring off across his spartan Del Mar office to a calendar on the wall. “It was a filly owned by John Mabee. What was her name?”

Her name was Advancing Star, the winner of the 1997 Hollywood Turf Express, which is nice but hardly the same as taking on Bayern, Hard Aces, Hoppertunity, and Catch a Flight at 1 1/4 miles.

“I wouldn’t do it if she wasn’t the kind of mare who controls a race,” Mandella said of Beholder. “We’ve seen how she does it with other mares, and I see no reason not to find out if she can do it in a race like the Classic.

“Besides,” he added, and now he was looking at the calendar again, the one produced by Santa Anita Park each year, “it wasn’t until after she won the Clement Hirsch here on Aug. 1 that we remembered to turn the calendar page. And there she was.”

There they were, Mandella and Beholder, pictured in a quiet moment.

“Maybe it’s our month,” he said.