This week at Golden Gate Fields
Schedule: Friday through Sunday Post time: 12:45 p.m. Fri., 1:15 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
Featured simulcast race: Grade 1, $400,000 Beholder Mile on Saturday at Santa Anita
Update: Nominations closed at midnight Thursday for the $50,000-added Albany Stakes on June 10. The 5-furlong grass race is the final stakes event of the winter-spring season, which ends June 18. … Mended continued her frontrunning dominance when she stepped up from restricted claimers to the first-level allowance in a 43⁄4-length victory Saturday. It was the fifth straight win for Mended since she was claimed for $12,500 by leading trainer John F. Martin for owners Troy and Maritza Onorato on Jan. 6. She has earned $54,000 since the claim. “She had some feet issues when I got her, but she’s over that now,” Martin said. “Troy picked her out; he’s really good with handicapping. He wanted me to go in as a partner but I said no, and now she’s probably going to make over $100,000.” Mended set by far the fastest pace of her career (23.86 seconds, 47.28 and 1:11.17) in Saturday’s race and was able to increase her lead in the stretch. “She’s sharp and really peaking right now,” Martin said. “My groom has done a great job with her. Timing is everything when you claim a horse. You just never know what the future is going to be. I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to get it done against tougher horses.” … Bronze Star, who set the pace in four straight stakes events in the summer and fall — winning two of them — runs for a $62,500 claiming price in Saturday’s fifth race.
Elsewhere: Eclipse Award winners Finest City and Stellar Wind run in the Beholder Mile against Vale Dori, who has won six straight races. One of those wins was over Finest City, the champion female sprinter of 2016, in the 11⁄8-mile Santa Margarita Stakes. The champion 3-year-old filly in 2015, Stellar Wind beat the mighty Beholder — the retired mare for whom Saturday’s race is named — twice in 2016. Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer nominated Songbird, the champion 2-yearold filly in 2015 and 3-year-old filly in 2016, but she will make her 2017 debut instead in the Ogden Phipps Stakes on June 10 at Belmont Park.