2013 Kentucky Oaks runner up Beholder will resume training when she recovers from an illness. She had originally been scheduled to be solid at the November Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale.
Beholder would have been one of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff betting favorites but she had to withdraw from the race due to an illness. Actually, the illness was minor but required treatment with medication which would have not been permissible under the Breeders’ Cup rules. The original plan was to sell Beholder following the Breeders’ Cup Distaff but she’ll now resume training instead. The reversal in course was more due to necessity than a ‘change of heart’. Beholder continues to recover from her illness but will not be well enough in time to ship to Kentucky from Santa Anita in time for the November 3 sale.
Ned Toffey, GM of Beholder’s owner Spendthrift Farms, explains: “Beholder continues to recover from her illness, and while her fever is down and she’s acting much better, veterinarian Jeff Blea of Von Bluecher, Blea, and Hunkin Inc. in California has advised us not to ship her cross-country to Kentucky right now. We had radiographs taken of her lungs [Friday] and she did have some inflammation, so we’re going to do right by Beholder and allow her to continue to get better. She’ll be scratched from the November sale, and Dr. Blea believes she probably needs 30-60 days to recover. Then Beholder should be ready to resume training, pending a full recovery.”
In other words, due to Beholder’s illness they’ve missed this year’s ‘window of opportunity’ to sell her. They need to keep training and racing her in order to keep her market value high. Beholder has won 10 of 15 starts for earnings of $3,368,300 and was trying to become only the second horse to win three Breeders’ Cup races. She won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The only horse to win three Breeders’ Cup races was Goldikova, who won three Breeders’ Cup Turf Miles in successive years.
The Breeders’ Cup is the biggest day in American horse racing and will take place this year at Santa Anita on October 31 and November 1.