Flashback: Beholder crushes males in the 2015 Pacific Classic

Once in a long while, a horse comes along and delivers a victory of such resounding and historic magnitude that even the most skeptical handicappers must acknowledge they have witnessed something special.

Such a moment occurred during the summer of 2015, when the great mare Beholder lined up in the Del Mar starting gate for a run against males in the Grade 1, $1 million Pacific Classic. Winner of the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and 2013 Breeders’ Cup Distaff, Beholder entered the Pacific Classic fresh off easy victories in the Adoration (G3) and Clement L. Hirsch (G1). Even while stretching out over 1 1/4 miles for the first time, Beholder was widely expected to prevail in Del Mar signature race, starting as the 2-1 favorite.

Yet no one — not even her connections — could have predicted the extraordinary, record-breaking performance Beholder would unleash. “[We] didn’t think she would do it quite like that,” trainer Richard Mandella later admitted.

With Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens in the saddle, Beholder was always prominent in the Pacific Classic. Flashing good speed from the start, the 5-year-old mare settled into third place around the first turn as reigning Breeders’ Cup Classic champion Bayern and future Grade 1-winning miler Midnight Storm flew to the front through testing splits of :22.36, :45.45, and 1:09.98.

Beholder was content to trail the leaders by several lengths, but she was in a comfortable spot with a daylight gap back to her closest pursuers. As the field moved down the backstretch, Beholder slowly crept closer to the leaders, drawing to within two lengths of the front with a half-mile remaining. She was traveling so comfortably that track announcer Trevor Denman noted “Beholder [is] just cantering along in the third spot on a long rein under Gary Stevens, she’s going very nicely…”

Then — without any encouragement from Stevens — Beholder suddenly blazed past Bayern and Midnight Storm. With a burst of acceleration rarely seen, Beholder roared to the front in the blink of an eye, prompting cheers from the crowd as Denman exclaimed “Here comes Beholder, and Beholder just breezing on by! Beholder strikes the front, Gary Stevens hasn’t moved!”

“The funny thing was, is that I didn’t do that. She did,” said Stevens, recounting Beholder’s sudden sweep to the front. “You could see her ears straight up. She was just going so easy. We went by Bayern like he was tied.”

And Beholder wasn’t finished yet. As the field spun into the straight, Stevens finally asked Beholder for her best run, and the favorite responded with a renewed burst of speed. With every stride her advantaged widened: “And Beholder is opening up on them!” Denman marveled, attempting to put into words the extraordinary sight unfolding before the Del Mar fans. “Almost impossible to believe! She’s turned this into an exercise gallop! Beholder is absolutely poetry in motion”

“When we straightened away, I pushed the button and she went on with it,” said Stevens. “I’ve never felt anything like that on a racetrack before.”

There’s a reason that Stevens had never felt anything like it before. When Beholder crossed the finish line in front by 8 1/4 lengths, she stopped the timer in 1:59.77, an unparalleled clocking in the context of racing history. Following the race, this writer teamed up with racing historian Gary Dougherty to discover — as near as we could figure — that Beholder’s time marked the fastest 1 1/4 miles ever run by a filly or mare on dirt in North America. By 0.03, Beholder’s clocking eclipsed the standard of 1:59 4/5 set by Princessnesian in the 1968 Hollywood Gold Cup and matched by Coup de Fusil in the 1987 Delaware Handicap.

Countless adjectives were summoned to describe Beholder’s spectacular victory. Accolades came in from all corners of the sport as racing fans and analysts, handicappers and horsemen alike heaped praise on the brilliant Pacific Classic champion. “I was in a good spot; right there with Beholder,” noted jockey Martin Garcia, who finished fourth aboard Hoppertunity. “Then she took off. She’s a freak, man. A freak.”

But Mandella probably summed it up best: “Nature doesn’t make many like her, ever.”

Considering Beholder eventually retired with three Breeders’ Cup wins, four Eclipse Awards, 11 Grade 1 wins, and $6,156,000 in earnings to her credit, it’s safe to say she truly was one of the greats, as anyone who witnessed her romp in the Pacific Classic will vigorously attest.

J. Keeler Johnson is a writer, videographer, handicapper, and all-around horse racing enthusiast. A great fan of racing history, he considers Dr. Fager to be the greatest racehorse ever produced in America, but counts Zenyatta as his all-time favorite. You can follow him on Twitter at @J_Keelerman.