Delight Has Home Field Edge in BC Juvenile Fillies Turf

Augustin Stable's 2-year-old graded stakes winner Delight  has an advantage no other entrants have headed into the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T). Her best win has been at the host track.

Delight, a daughter of Mendelssohn  , comes into the Breeders' Cup World Championships off a five-length score in the Oct. 7 JPMorgan Chase Jessamine Stakes (G2T) at Keeneland.

"We've got a win over the track, and we've had the luxury of stabling here the last month and had two nice pieces of work over the track, so I'm pretty happy," said trainer Jonathan Thomas, who picked Delight out of this year's Ocala Breeders' Sales' March Select 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale for $400,000. The filly was consigned by Paul Sharp, for whom Thomas said he has a great deal of respect.

"I thought the style of her work was really good. She had a super gallop out, and I loved her big stride. She did a lot of things really well at the sale," he said. "The consignor, Paul Sharp, I'm a big fan of his and think he's done a lot of tremendous work. And then Liz Crow had bought the filly for a pinhook group, and she buys really nice horses. So I just felt on all levels very comfortable with everything we saw and who we were buying her from."

Thomas also knew, without question, he was buying a filly best suited to racing on grass.

"There is nothing dirt about her. Literally nothing," he said. "You've got to lean on their action, how they move, and obviously pedigree when you're going into it, but a Mendelssohn out of a Medaglia d'Oro mare, we had no preconceived notions we were buying anything other than a turf filly, which is fun."

Augustin Stable is owned by George Strawbridge Jr., who has won three Breeders' Cup races, two of them on the turf: Tikkanen  in the 1994 Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T), Forever Together  in the 2008 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T), and Informed Decision  in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).

Delight has won twice and placed twice out of four career starts. After finishing third in her first two starts, she won by 2 1/4 lengths going 7 1/2 furlongs Aug. 27 at Delaware Park. Then she was sent to Keeneland where she dominated in the Jessamine. She made her final tune-up for the Juvenile Fillies Turf Oct. 28 at Keeneland where she went four furlongs in :52, one of five to work at that distance on the turf.

"All you can do is prepare the best you can with the horse you have and then hope you could draw well and have some racing luck, but as far as a preparation, really everything's gone really well," Thomas said.

Delight could potentially face six other graded/group winners in the Juvenile Filly Turf, including Johnnie Walker Natalma Stakes (G1T) winner Last Call , Miss Grillo Stakes (G2T) winner Pleasant Passage , and three-time European group winner Meditate .

Last Call, a daughter of leading turf sire English Channel , is owned by X-Men Racing and SF Racing, who are also co-owners of Queen's Plate Stakes winner Moira . Last Call broke her maiden in the Natalma by a length for trainer Kevin Attard.

Pleasant Passage is an Emory Hamilton homebred by More Than Ready  , the leading sire by number of Breeders' Cup winners with seven (three in juvenile stakes), and trained by Shug McGaughey. She is undefeated in two career starts and won the Miss Grillo by three-quarters of a length.

Meditate is a daughter of No Nay Never  and owned by longtime partners Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith. She has won four of six career starts since April when she won her debut by 3 1/4 lengths. She went on a tear winning her next three starts in group stakes at Naas, Ascot, and the Curragh. She has been second in a pair of group 1 stakes since Sept. 11. Meditate is trained by Aidan O'Brien and has already banked $342,341.

The entries from Europe also include an undefeated filly named Midnight Mile , another daughter of No Nay Never out of the Galileo  mare Ruby Tuesday . Owned by Mrs. Richard Henry and trained by Richard Fahey, she won her debut by three-quarters of a length July 16 at Doncaster and became a group winner in her second start, the Godolphin Oh So Sharp Stakes (G3) at Newmarket.

Here’s the field for the @BreedersCup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Future Stars Friday at #Keeneland! pic.twitter.com/yHOkTozn7w

— Keeneland Racing (@keenelandracing) October 31, 2022

Entries: Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T)

Keeneland, Friday, November 04, 2022, Race 8

• Grade IT
• 1m
• Turf
• $1,000,000
• 2 yo Fillies
• 4:20 PM (local)

PP	Horse	Jockey	Wgt	Trainer	M/L
1	1Comanche Country (IRE)	Umberto Rispoli	122	Philip D'Amato	15/1
2	2Cairo Consort (KY)	Joel Rosario	122	Nathan Squires	12/1
3	3Last Call (KY)	Lanfranco Dettori	122	Kevin Attard	20/1
4	4Free Look (KY)	Flavien Prat	122	Chad C. Brown	5/1
5	5Pleasant Passage (KY)	Irad Ortiz, Jr.	122	Claude R. McGaughey III	12/1
6	6Be Your Best (IRE)	Jose L. Ortiz	122	Horacio De Paz	8/1
7	7Spirit Gal (FR)	Ricardo Santana, Jr.	122	W.P. Browne	20/1
8	8Manhattan Jungle (IRE)	Manuel Franco	122	Amy Murphy	30/1
9	9Delight (FL)	Luis Saez	122	Jonathan Thomas	6/1
10	10Meditate (IRE)	Ryan L. Moore	122	Aidan P. O'Brien	4/1
11	11G Laurie (KY)	William T. Buick	122	H. Graham Motion	12/1
12	12Midnight Mile (IRE)	Wayne Lordan	122	Richard Fahey	10/1
13	13Xigera (KY)	Julien R. Leparoux	122	Philip A. Bauer	8/1
14	14Basil Martini (IRE)	John R. Velazquez	122	Joseph Patrick O'Brien	15/1
15	15Bling (KY)	Rafael Bejarano	122	Victoria H. Oliver	30/1
16	16Alluring Angel (GB)	Adam Beschizza	122	Jorge R. Abreu	20/1