GOODBYE, Mendelssohn. Thanks for the memories.

In a season that featured two comets – Justify and Accelerate – and a bunch of shooting stars – Diversify, Catholic Boy, Discreet Lover, etc. – the three-year-old son of Scat Daddy brought intrigue, inspiration and certainly a sense of adventure to a sport that teeters on moribund at times. Mendelssohn and his Coolmore connections are anything but moribund.

Six trips from Ireland to America, from May to December, Churchill Downs to Belmont Park to Saratoga to Belmont to Churchill to Aqueduct, earning five cheques including four in Grade 1 stakes races – now that’s adventure.

Perhaps, the bay colt is no Hillary but, by God, give him a consolation trophy – and a book full of mares – for trying to scale the mountain. In an era where horses are rested more than raced, where speed figures and bounce theories are analysed more than dapples and feed tubs, Mendelssohn put all that aside and swung for the fences six times.

At Saratoga, days before the Travers, I gave assistant T.J. Comerford a lift in my golf cart, er, buggy as Comerford described it.

Mendelssohn was on his way to the main track, Comerford had forgotten a piece of equipment and gone skittering back for it, he was furlongs behind Mendelssohn with miles to go. Comerford hopped in the buggy. For him, it was a lift and a relief. For me, it was a story and a perspective.

I asked him, simply, why. Why do it?

“You have to try. It’s very rare that you come across a dirt horse especially on our side of the water, he won in Dubai on the dirt, you just hope, it would be great if he did,” Comerford said. “It’s a long time since we won a dirt race, I think it’s Johannesburg, we’ve been touched off in the Breeders’ Cup Classics and all.

“We want to win a dirt race because they’re rare. Go And Go, Dermot Weld. Johannesburg... He’s bred for it. Do we stick to the turf or do we keep going? It’s not fair on the horse if we keep switching. At least we’re willing to try.”

THE BEST PART

Oh yes, they were willing to try and that’s the best part. As my father used to say – it must be an Irish saying – whenever we got beat, “Nothing beats a try but a failure.” Or was it the other way around?

When Dad said it from behind the wheel of a chugging horse van with four tired horses in the back, all I remember was thinking, ‘Hey, at least we tried.’ That day in the buggy, Comerford explained why they wanted to try. Of course, there were stallion implications, but there was also the challenge, the desire to tilt at that windmill, the urge to do it your way.

Oh, of course, as the game of thoroughbred racing always elicits, there were many critics and many criticisms. The horse needed more gate work, to learn to pop and go. He needed to hone his American dirt speed to compete with American dirt horses.

He needed an American jockey who knew how to dole out his speed like a bartender pouring shots. He needed to stay here, rather than tax him with six arduous trans-Atlantic trips. He needed to use his speed. He needed to conserve his speed. He needed, he needed, he needed…

After the Cigar Mile, the sixth and final defeat on Mendelssohn’s Everest, a friend said to me, “Don’t they know? It can’t be done.”

Ah, that’s exactly the reason to try. Why climb Everest? Because it’s there. Why try American dirt racing? Because it’s there.

Sure, it didn’t work and sure it might have worked better if they heeded any of those suggestions, but what’s the point of that? Mendelssohn living here with Todd Pletcher? Mendelssohn under John Velazquez’s spell? That’s cool, but not iconic.

And don’t ever forget about the variables of this variable-filled game. If connections kept Catholic Boy on the turf this summer, Mendelssohn wins the Grade 1 Travers at Saratoga. And we’re saying, look at that, it can be done.