Beholder launches comeback in Santa Lucia

Defending champ Beholder is using the restricted stakes as a stepping stone to the Vanity (Breeders’ Cup Ltd. Photo)

Two-time Eclipse Award winner Beholder (Henny Hughes) is using a familiar
starting point — Friday’s $75,000
Santa
Lucia S. at Santa Anita — for her 2015 campaign. The Richard Mandella
trainee found the 1 1/16-mile event an ideal kickoff for 2014, and the defending
champion once again has a sizeable class edge over the competition.

Yet Beholder’s return engagement in the Santa Lucia takes on a different
aspect this time around. Unlike last year, when the Spendthrift Farm colorbearer
entered with a three-race winning streak crowned by the Breeders’ Cup Distaff
(G1), Beholder makes her first start back from an illness that struck last fall.
She spiked a high fever, ruling her out of a Breeders’ Cup title defense. After
developing some inflammation in her lungs, she was also withdrawn from the Fasig-Tipton
Kentucky November Sale so that she could continue her convalescence in
California.

Once restored to health, Beholder resumed training, and she’s been a regular
on the Santa Anita worktab since February. Mandella mulled Grade 1 options
elsewhere, with last Saturday’s Madison at Keeneland and this Friday’s Apple
Blossom at Oaklawn, but ultimately preferred to keep her home and point for the
May 9 Vanity (G1). The Santa Lucia is a cozy prep, being restricted to
distaffers at least four years old who have not won a graded stakes at a mile or
beyond in 2015.

Tiz Midnight (right) is the last horse to beat Warren’s Veneda (Benoit Photo)

The other co-highweight, Tiz Midnight (Midnight Lute), was second to Beholder
in the Zenyatta and sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. The Bob Baffert mare
rebounded by taking the Bayakoa (G2) in track-record time at Los Alamitos, but
later disappointed as the 3-5 favorite in the Paseana. Unraced since that
January 11 contest, Tiz Midnight has drawn post 2 with Martin Garcia.

Uzziel (Harlington) is the only other entrant with current graded stakes
form. Second to the streaking Warren’s Veneda (Affirmative) in the Santa Maria
(G2) two starts ago, she exits a fourth to the same rival in the 1 1/8-mile
Santa Margarita (G1). Uzziel should appreciate the cutback in trip, if not the
prospect of facing Beholder and Tiz Midnight, who is the last horse to beat
Warren’s Veneda.

Rounding out the field are Beholder’s stablemate Gusto Dolce (T. H.
Approval), a Brazilian Group 2 victress who was sixth in her U.S. bow February
20; Melanistic (Ministers Wild Cat), most recently second in the Dream of
Summer; turf stakes performer Oscar Party (Dixie Union); and the
class-challenged Sky Mega (Sky Mesa) and Backintheacademy (Put It Back).