Weekend Stakes Beyer: Mendelssohn 106; Audible 99

[RolloTomasi]

Mendelssohn is completely different to those that have run in the past.

That's a bit exaggerated. Rather than a single prep, Mendelssohn has 2 with the first coming in a modest all-weather stakes where he just did enough to handle the 2 stablemates who followed him to Dubai and got trounced. I can't imagine that race was any more important than the private trials conducted at Ballydoyle with their past Derby hopes.

He has an elite dirt pedigree, has won on the surface, has shipped to the USA and won, is a G1 winner, and had been meticulously aimed/prepped for the KY Derby.

The sire of Mendelssohn is hardly elite dirt from a stud record perspective. While Scat Daddy did all his running on dirt (and was injured reportedly when trounced in the Kentucky Derby), he has sired exactly zero Grade 1 winners on the main track in NA. He was clearly more adept as a turf sire. Furthermore, Scat Daddy was also the sire of Daddy Long Legs and Scat Daddy himself was a son of Johannesburg, both of whom were likewise Coolmore Derby duds.

As for his Grade 1 status, the BC Juvenile Turf has been remarkably unproductive with respect to subsequent Grade 1 winners. Oscar Performance and Bobby's Kitten (who won the equally unproductive BC Turf Sprint) are the only subsequent Grade 1 winners from all the top finishers of that race. In fact, aside from Mendelssohn's 2 wins, only Oscar Performance (3 straight stakes) and Hootenanny (2 allowance wins) have won more than one race after winning the BC Juvenile Turf. Actually, 7 of the 11 winners of that race were winless the rest of their careers.