Mendelssohn’s Miracle Impressive On Debut

Mendelssohn’s daughter Miracle (2f Mendelssohn x Good Omen, by Smart Strike) caught the eye at Saratoga on Wednesday with a six length victory on the dirt to become her sire’s third winner.

Making her debut running over six furlongs on dirt, the Rodolphe Brissett trainee closely attended the leader early on before taking control at the quarter pole. Under urging from Flavien Prat, Miracle started to pull away. She steadily increased her lead until she was six lengths ahead at the line with Practical Joke’s Banterra giving Coolmore sires the exacta.

Bred by Magnolia Mares and Pony Express Sales, Miracle has always been in demand, starting from the time she sold for $110,000 as a weanling at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale.

She’d make a trip through the Saratoga sales ring when Bay Hill Stables bought her for $250,000 at the Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearling Sale before Top Line Sales offered her at this year’s OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds.

It was at that sale that racing connections WinStar Farm and Siena Farm snatched her up for $360,000. The filly has been training at the WinStar Training Center, where she registered two consecutive bullets before this start.

Miracle is the second foal out of Good Omen, a three-quarter sister to two-time Horse of the Year Curlin. A winner herself, Good Omen is also a half-sister to the stakes-placed Philanthropic.

Good Omen foaled a filly from the first U.S.-bred crop of Caravaggio this year.

A purple-blooded graded stakes winner on both dirt and turf, Mendelssohn is the sire of three winners and seven other placed runners from his first crop.