Mendelssohn touched down in Louisville Monday evening, returning to his native state where he’ll bid to become the first European winner of the Kentucky Derby and add another major prize to his late sire’s glistening resume.

Originally scheduled for an early-evening arrival, the flight carrying Mendelssohn and his three traveling mates Deauville, Threeandfourpence and Seahenge was diverted to Indianapolis due to a paperwork issue with one of the traveling lads. The quartet touched down in Indianapolis at about 6:15pm and then made the approximately three-hour van ride south to Louisville, arriving at close to 10pm. and going immediately into quarantine at Barn 17.

A little after 8am Tuesday morning the tacked up group stretched their legs inside the fenced-off barn. The Aidan O’Brien-trained contingent is expected to remain under quarantine Tuesday and Wednesday, with a training session Thursday morning.

Today the field was set during Tuesday morning’s post-position draw and Mendelssohn drew post 14 and was pegged as the 5/1 second choice on the morning line by Churchill Downs’ Mike Battaglia.

“No curveballs,” Battaglia said of setting his early line after many of the race’s top contenders, including Mendelssohn and 3/1 favorite Justify, drew favorably in the field of 20. Justify drew post seven, the starting spot for six Kentucky Derby winners.

Mendelssohn and jockey Ryan Moore will be the last entrant in the main starting gate in post 14, which last produced a winner in 1961 in Carry Back and two winners, five seconds and five thirds from 63 starters.

The Sire

Ireland’s representative in this year’s $2 million Kentucky Derby, set to be run for the 144th time on Saturday at Churchill Downs, is one of four runners in the field sired by the late Scat Daddy along with undefeated morning-line favorite Justify, Flameaway and Combatant. Mendelssohn is a member of the second to last crop of Scat Daddy, who died walking out of his paddock at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, in mid-December 2015.

Scat Daddy was 11 at the time of his death and in the midst of a significant upswing as a stallion, leading the first-crop sires list in 2011 and close to siring his 70th stakes winner. He’s now approaching 100 stakes winners and ranks fourth on the North American general sires list with eight crops of racing age.

“It’s heartbreaking when you think about what he is accomplishing,” said Todd Pletcher, who trained Scat Daddy for James Scatuorchio and Coolmore. “He was just hitting his prime and getting the quality of mares that would help get him to this point. You hate to lose those kind of horses that early.”

Coolmore is already in the midst of looking for a replacement for Scat Daddy in the U.S., which they no doubt have in the form of Mendelssohn, a $3 million yearling and half brother to champion Beholder and top U.S. sire Into Mischief. Coolmore already stands sons of Scat Daddy, a multiple Grade 1 winner who ran in the 2007 Kentucky Derby.

Mendelssohn set himself up for the Kentucky Derby with a whitewash win in the UAE Derby

“To have a have a son of one of its stallions running in the Derby is significant for any farm, so to have four, all with very live chances is remarkable,” said Coolmore spokeswoman Robyn Murray. “We are very proud to have stood a stallion of Scat Daddy’s calibre here at Ashford, and it is a huge shame, not just for us but for the whole industry to have lost him so young.

“We are incredibly fortunate however to be standing two of his best sons in No Nay Never and Caravaggio at the farm in Ireland, and we look forward to welcoming Mendelssohn to the ranks, who is a hugely exciting prospect.”

Scat Daddy impressed early in his career and won three of four starts, including the Grade 1 Champagne and Grade 2 Sanford, to earn a trip to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. There he finished fourth, behind eventual Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense, and returned as a top three-year-old the next season.

Pletcher brought him to the Kentucky Derby off back-to-back victories in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and Grade 1 Florida Derby.

“I used to talk to my dad a lot early in the morning when I was driving, to Palm Meadows at the time, and I remember him telling me, ‘this horse is a beast, he might be the best horse we had, ever,’ ” Pletcher said.

“Whenever it was they started breezing, he’s got a five-eighths track so instead of going an eighth or a quarter, it’s easier for him to go three-sixteenths. When he first started breezing, most of them will go in 19 or 20 seconds, and Scat Daddy went in 17 and change. He was like, ‘this horse is good. I need to get him out of here and up to you.’ ”

Scat Daddy passed that precociousness on to his offspring, including Mendelssohn, who won his second start last August at the Curragh, finished second in the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst on his fourth run and won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in his fifth

Pletcher sees a lot of Scat Daddy in Mendelssohn and the late sire’s other offspring, attributes that make them dangerous on any surface at any distance.

“He’s a superstar stallion in all aspects, colts and fillies, turf and dirt, sprint and route. He’s the complete package,” Pletcher said. “Similar to what you see with Mendelssohn, they have a high cruising speed and ability to carry that. He (Scat Daddy) was kind of a big, coarse, little bit plain-headed horse, sometimes a little headstrong to gallop.

“I haven’t seen so much of that. As a rule they have pretty genuine disposition, good minds. He was never a problem in the paddock or anything like that. He wanted to gallop a little stronger on a daily basis, especially for a horse we were always challenged trying to keep enough weight on him, we were trying to balance that, preparing for big races and not overdoing it. That’s one thing we always felt we were battling a little bit, getting enough conditioning on him and keeping it on him.”

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