Mendelssohn Making Steady Climb Among Sires

Into Mischief  has been the gold standard for sires going on seven years. But there's no need to look too far to find an up-and-coming sire making a name for himself.

Mendelssohn , a half brother to Into Mischief, has only had four crops but is knocking on his second consecutive top-20 finish on North America's General Sires List based on progeny earnings. He was No. 19 last year and currently holds the No. 17 spot.

He stands this year at Ashford Stud near Versailles, Ky., for $15,000.

Part of a class of sires that includes some of the very best—Justify , Good Magic , Bolt d'Oro , and City of Light , to name a few—has allowed Mendelssohn to fly below the radar. His pedigree includes a mixture of successful lines. In addition to being out of the Tricky Creek mare Leslie's Lady, dam of Into Mischief and three-time Breeders' Cup winner and Hall of Famer Beholder, Mendelssohn shares the same sire as Justify, the late Scat Daddy.

Heading to stud in 2019, Mendelssohn's first crop placed him sixth among freshman sires. He followed that debut with back-to-back No. 4 rankings among second- and third-crop sires. This year, he's climbed to the third spot among fourth-crop sires.

Overall, he wasn't ranked in his first year, in which Delight was his top runner, earning $224,020 of the total purse of $1,831,266 collected by Mendelssohn's progeny. Then, 2023 saw a big step forward. Austere, who to date has been the sire's single-year leading earner, collected $370,950 of $6,883,881.

Last year, Midnight Rising led the charge for Mendelssohn, picking up $268,980 of the $10,170,253. Now, this year his top runner has been Wendelssohn, who banked $214,482 of the $4,359,366 total earned to date by Mendelssohn's offspring. He is still waiting on his first graded stakes winner in North America.

Outside of North America, Mendelssohn has become a sire of note in Chile, where he has numerous group 2 and group 3 winners. 

M.V. Magnier purchased Mendelssohn for $3 million at the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale from the consignment of the sire's breeder Clarkland Farm.

In his racing career, Mendelssohn was 4-2-2 from 13 starts with $2,542,137 in earnings. Owned by the Coolmore-affiliated Susan Magnier, Derrick Smith, and Michael Tabor, Mendelssohn began his career in the United Kingdom as a 2-year-old and capped his juvenile season by winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf (G1T). 

He launched his 3-year-old campaign with a pair of wins, including the UAE Derby (G2). It was the lead-in to a disappointing finish in the 2018 Kentucky Derby (G1), but he rebounded nicely. While he never won again, Mendelssohn posted top-three finishes in the Dwyer (G3), Travers (G1), and Gold Cup (G1) stakes.