Mendelssohn© Photo Healy Racing
Mendelssohn is likely to have two more runs in America before he takes aim at the Breeders’ Cup Classic on November 3.
Aidan O’Brien’s colt looked the real deal in the UAE Derby at Meydan in March, but he had an awful time of things in the Kentucky Derby, when last of 20 runners in horrendous conditions.
O’Brien has long viewed Mendelssohn as a Breeders’ Cup Classic horse, and is keen to give him more experience in America before the big one at Churchill Downs.
He said: “We’re training him for a race at Belmont (Dwyer Stakes, July 7) — a Group Three on the dirt — which is the same day as the Eclipse.
“He’ll either go for the Eclipse or Belmont and it looks like he’ll go to America.
“We’re thinking that’s where he’ll go, then the Pennsylvania Derby before the Classic.
“Come the Classic, he’ll hopefully be there all guns blazing.”
On Mendelssohn’s painful experience in the Kentucky Derby, O’Brien added: “We knew before that on the slop it would be a different world.
“Ryan (Moore) always felt he was a dirt horse but he’d never been on the slop before.
“It was over very quickly and he just looked after him. It was a good experience for us.”
