The Irish filly Meditate may have been the favorite coming into the Grade 1 Juvenile Fillies turf, and she may have been the winner, but it certainly wasn't easy.
The Aiden O'Brien trainee, piloted by Ryan Moore came out of the gate and drifted slightly left, knocking hard into rival Delight and Luis Saez and shuffling her well away from her preferred front-running spot. Moore and Meditate were forced to settle well back in tight with her competition, off a pace set by Spirit Gal, who was fighting pilot Ricardo Santana Jr. for much of the backstretch.
Moore sat off the rail with Pleasant Passage to their inside and began making their move well ahead of entering the final turn, with no choice but to swing out five wide on the turn and begin driving. Once she found open ground, Meditate covered the final quarter on firm turf in :22.74 with ears pricked at the finish, ahead of Pleasant Passage by 2 1/2 lengths at the wire.
“It's obviously always very hard coming here,” said Moore afterward. “Everything needs to go right. No one comes here to get beat. The filly did it very easy and has lots of talent. She hasn't run a bad race all year and gets better with every race. She started well, went hard for a little bit, I was going to be wide and the pace got steady. I followed a horse down the backside and she picked up really well down the stretch. She had them covered with a furlong out and in front pricking her ears. She was much the best.”
Cairo Consort was third, followed by Midnight Mile.
Meditate paid $6.08 to win.
Moore and O'Brien are no strangers to success in the Breeders' Cup. The race marked the 14th Breeders' Cup win for O'Brien, though his first in the Juvenile Fillies Turf. The victory is the tenth Breeders' Cup win for Moore.
Meditate came to the Breeders' Cup off a second in the G1 Cheveley Park at Newmarket, which O'Brien said in hindsight was perhaps too quick a follow-up to her second in the G1 Moyglare Stud Stakes at The Curragh. She also has wins in the G2 Alpha Centauri Debuante, G3 Albany and G3 Naas Sprint to her credit.
“We had a reason (she didn't win) at the Curragh and a reason for her last race and weren't sure about the mile,” said O'Brien. “Ryan (Moore) gave her a brilliant ride. Michael (Tabor) was very confident that this was the race for her. It's incredible. We came to here to see if she would be a filly for the Guineas. And I heard Michael telling Ryan before the race, if she wasn't going to get the trip here, we might not train her for the Guineas. Obviously, the result was great. Ryan was very patient. He didn't have an easy draw and said he had to take his time the first half. Delighted for everyone.”
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Support our journalism while accessing bonus behind-the-scenes content, Q&As, and more. Subscribe to our Patreon stream.The one-mile turf contest is the farthest Meditate had been, and O'Brien said her pedigree (by No Nay Never out of Dalakhani mare Pembina) suggested she could stretch out longer.
Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, Mrs. John Magnier and Westerberg (Michael Kuessner) are the owners, and the breeders are Lynch-Bages & Rhinestone Bloodstock. The owners purchased Meditate for $424,619 as a yearling at the Arqana Deauville August Yearling Sale, where she was consigned by Capucines and bought by Jamie McCalmont.
The final time for the mile was 1:35.38.
REPLAY: Meditate wins the $1 Million #BreedersCup Juvenile Fillies Turf on #FutureStarsFriday at @keenelandracing! Cheers to all of the connections! pic.twitter.com/8irf7OQ8pp
— Breeders' Cup (@BreedersCup) November 4, 2022
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