Typeahead.js + Bloodhound remote data: how to get calling object reference?

Question

I'm trying to DRY out some JQuery code that initializes a typeahead.js plugin that uses the Bloodhound suggestion engine with a remote data source. This is the code so far:

var locsData = new Bloodhound({
  datumTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.obj.whitespace("name"),
  queryTokenizer: Bloodhound.tokenizers.whitespace,
  remote: {
    url: "/locations/search.json?q=%QUERY",
    ajax: {
      beforeSend: function(xhr, settings) {
        $("#typeahead1").addClass('loading-text');
      },
      complete: function(xhr, status) {
        $("#typeahead1").removeClass('loading-text');
      }
    }
  },
  limit: 100
});
locsData.initialize();

$("#typeahead1").typeahead({
  minLength: 3
}, {
  name: "locs",
  displayKey: "name",
  source: locsData.ttAdapter()
});

I'm trying to generalize this code for a bunch of different text fields; that should not be a problem: I could use $(".myClass").typeahead({ ... }) and the plugin would be initialized for all of those controls. The problem I'm facing is with the ajax callback functions in the Bloodhound configuration (beforeSend, complete, etc.): I'm toggling a "loading.gif" class for the text field inside those functions, and I need that code to get a reference to the calling object.

How can I get a reference to the calling text field inside those callbacks? I need something like this:

$(<text-field reference>).addClass('loading-text');

I hope somebody could help me. Thanks in advance!

---

EDIT - For now I'm using the following code that somehow solves my problem, but the question about getting a calling object reference (the subject of this) is still pending.

    if ($(document.activeElement).typeahead != null) {
      $(document.activeElement).addClass('loading-text');
    }