Beholder – A Fabulous Filly by the Numbers…

77-r                  79=q             80=r

09/26/15     08/22/15   09/28/13

When analyzing a horse’s form, by the numbers, we like to look at best efforts, especially with well tried horses.  Beholder is a filly to Behold, but she is not as amazing at this stage as a Personal Ensign or Winning Colors or Zenyatta – however she is not far off of them either…  Zenyatta ran her best race hitting an 83.5 but never came close to that effort again,  She only ran 3 other races faster than an 80.0.  When she was beaten by Blame in the BC, she ran another outstanding race of 80.8 with trouble at the beginning of the race – indicating a better number was actually run by her.  I estimate her at about 82.0 that day.  If you can recall how great a mare Zenyatta was, then you have to respect how difficult it is to run better than an 80.0 even one time.

Beholder has only run faster than 80.0 on a single occasion and that was back in 2013.  So here we are 2 years later and noting she has had some injury problems, it’s taken her a long time to get back to her TOP in September of 2013 which was a 80.5.  Interestingly, she won coming back in the Breeders’ Cup but only needed a 77.5 to dust that field.  This leaves a few big questions on Beholder.  Question number 1, is she the kind of horse that only runs as fast as necessary to win, thereby fooling those who go by a particular dogma when a horse hits a lifetime top.  Question #2 -for most people who study speed figures — can a horse repeat or pair a lifetime Top?  (A lifetime top is usually a strong indicator of a backward race next out).  That did happen here, but Beholder won anyway, so we really don’t know if she bounced or just ran fast enough to win and could have gone much faster?

What is clear, is it’s been a long time for her to return to this impressive form, but now that she has achieved this level of conditioning, the next question arises — will she be able to go faster?  Typically, at 81.0 is necessary to win the BC Classic, which if Beholder wins she will almost surely have to run when considering the classy competition this year… So is an 81.0 within her scope, my reply is DEFINITELY!  She moved forward in her form in August, down at Del Mar, running a 79.5 and then had a nice Easy win at Santa Anita on 9/26, this shoud set her up to run aa new lifetime TOP which I will set at 80.8*…

She’s a contender, but will that be good enough and what is the right price?   Just some more questions for a handicapper…