Beholder

Beholder (foaled May 9, 2010) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse and multiple Eclipse Award winner. Her most memorable performance was defeating the champion filly Songbird by a nose in the 2016 Breeders' Cup Distaff. Her other notable wins include the 2012 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, the 2013 Breeders' Cup Distaff and the 2015 Pacific Classic against male horses. She is the first horse since 1976 to win a Grade One race at age 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and one of only two horses to have ever won three Breeders' Cup races. She was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2022, her first year of eligibility. Background Beholder is a bay mare with no white markings, other than two small specks of white on her forehead. She was bred by Fred and Nancy Mitchell at Clarkland Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. She was sired by Henny Hughes, a sprinter whose biggest wins came in the King's Bishop Stakes and Vosburgh Stakes in 2006. Beholder's dam, Leslie's Lady, won five races out of 28 starts, including the listed Hoosier Debutante Stakes in 1998, and was purchased by Fred and Nancy Mitchell in 2006 for $100,000. Leslie's Lady was a descendant of the broodmare Last Bird, making her a distant relative of the Kentucky Derby winner I'll Have Another. Beholder's older half-brother, Into Mischief (sired by Harlan's Holiday), won the 2007 CashCall Futurity and the 2008 Damascus Stakes, and her younger half-brother Mendelssohn won the 2017 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and the 2018 UAE Derby. Leslie's Lady was named the 2016 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year. As a yearling, Beholder was consigned by the Clarkland Farm to the sale at Keeneland in September 2011, where she was bought for $180,000 by B. Wayne Hughes' Spendthrift Farm. At age two, the filly was sent into training with California-based trainer Richard Mandella. Beholder initially developed a reputation as a "temperamental diva." As a young filly, she was prone to rearing when she got upset and later turned to bucking. But the people who worked with her every day viewed her differently; her exercise rider in 2013, David Nuesch, described her as "straightforward", explaining, "she kind of likes it to be her idea and doesn't want to be told too much what to do." Her groom, Ruben Mercado, said she was a "little angel" in the stables but "all business" on the track. Mandella used earplugs and a hood with ear coverings (colloquially called "earmuffs") to help keep her focused.