LEXINGTON, KY. – The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf ought to be sponsored by a department store. It’s got everything. The 14-horse, fully stocked field has speed, pace runners, and closers, along with a shelf-load of potential pace scenarios. It’s got horses stretching out and horses cutting back. It’s got local horses, out-of-state horses, and horses from foreign shores. The one thing it doesn’t have is an obvious favorite. Meditate, an Irish horse trained by Aidan O’Brien, has been made the 4-1 morning-line favorite off a 4-for-6 record that includes three group wins and two seconds in Group 1 races in Ireland and England. Normally that kind of record and pedigree would propel a horse to solid favoritism in a one-mile grass race in the United States, but Meditate has several questions nagging at her: She’s never raced beyond seven furlongs, and she’s coughed up the lead late in both of her losses. In the straight-line, seven-furlong Moyglare Stud Stakes at The Curragh over soft turf on Sept. 11, Meditate seemed a winner with a furlong left but was swept up by the highly regarded Tahiyra, losing by 2 1/4 lengths. Thirteen days later in the six-furlong Cheveley Park Stakes over good ground, Meditate once again took the lead late but lost by three-quarters of a length. :: BREEDERS’ CUP 2022: See DRF’s special section with top contenders, odds, comments, news, and more for each division O’Brien acknowledged Tuesday morning that Meditate needs to prove her ability at a mile. “We know she has a lot of class, we know she has plenty speed, we know she’s a good mind, we know she’s a hardy filly, but whether she gets the trip or not we’re not sure,” O’Brien said. Four other horses based in Europe passed the entry box for the Juvenile Fillies Turf. Two potential speedsters, Midnight Mile (10-1) and Basil Martini (10-1), drew the 12 and 14 posts, respectively, while the front-running Spirit Gal (20-1) and stalker Manhattan Jungle (30-1) drew posts 7 and 8, respectively. Stateside, three races account for the brunt of the rest of field. The Grade 2 Jessamine Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race held Oct. 7 at Keeneland, produced the second choice on the morning line, Delight (6-1). The Miss Grillo Stakes, held Oct. 1 at Aqueduct over a slow, yielding turf course, was won by Pleasant Passage (12-1), who is undefeated in two starts, but the horses who finished behind her, Free Look and Be Your Best, have been rated the better horses at 5-1 and 8-1, respectively. The third race of that trio may be the most confounding to handicappers – the Group 1 Natalma Stakes, a one-mile turf race on Sept. 17 at Woodbine. :: Bet the Breeders' Cup with a $200 First Deposit Match and FREE Formulator PPs. Join DRF Bets. The first three finishers in the firm-ground Natalma have not run since that race. The winner, Last Call (20-1), used an off-the-pace style to run down the leaders at the top of the stretch, posting an impressive 23.73-second final quarter and earning a best-in-the-field Beyer Speed Figure of 79. So far, so good, right? Not so fast. The Natalma was Last Call’s first win in three starts, she went off at 21-1, and her 79 Beyer was a full 20 points higher than her previous start. Kevin Attard, Last Call’s trainer, said Tuesday that his barn expected Last Call to win her second start. But she had trouble in the race and was rank, so the team took the blinkers off and began working her behind horses. “She’s one of those horses where every week, breezing-wise, she just got better and better and better,” Attard said. “You kept seeing more coming out of her.” The favorite in the Natalma was Cairo Consort (12-1), who couldn’t chase down Last Call in the stretch. On the rail, G Laurie (12-1) made up ground but finished another three-quarters of a length back. :: Breeders' Cup Friday and Saturday Past Performances are available now! Save up to 36% on BC essentials with a DRF Package!  “I don’t think they were going to get to her, to be honest,” Attard said. “Not to take anything away from anyone, but the last eighth of a mile, the last sixteenth of a mile, they had every opportunity to get there. They just couldn’t.” Pleasant Passage, the Miss Grillo winner, came from off the pace to win her maiden start by a neck. In the Miss Grillo, she merrily went to the lead, powered down the backstretch, and held off her five rivals at odds of nearly 10-1. Her Beyer was a 78, despite a slow time. Unlike the Natalma and Miss Grillo, the Jessamine was formful. Delight was the favorite in the 12-horse field, and she took the lead from the start and then just kept running, winning by five lengths, for her second win in four starts. Jonathan Thomas, Delight’s trainer, said Tuesday morning that his team circled the Jessamine early in Delight’s career after she began showing talent in the summer. While Delight’s running line for the Jessamine shows her leading every step, her first six furlongs went in 1:14.73. She’ll have options coming out of post 9 with Luis Saez back up, Thomas said. :: Get access to Breeders' Cup Clocker Reports with our special VIP Package and save off the retail price. “We’ve got the luxury of letting Luis figure out what he wants to do,” Thomas said. “He’s got horses to his inside where he can see what they want to do, and he’s got horses to his outside to watch if they are going to work hard to get to the lead. If they do, he’ll probably let them.” California is represented in the Juvenile Fillies Turf by the seemingly formidable Comanche Country, an Irish-bred horse who is undefeated since arriving in the United States last summer. She’s 12-1 on the morning line despite her perfect stateside record, perhaps because California horses have had a miserable record in the Juvenile Fillies Turf, even though nine of the last 14 Breeders’ Cup events have been run at California tracks. Then there’s the question mark posed by Xigera (8-1), the third-place finisher in the Grade 1 Alcibiades on dirt in her last start. Prior to that start, she easily won a maiden at Saratoga on the turf as the favorite. She’ll be coming off the shelf to try to run back to that performance, which could be good enough to win this wide-open race. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.