The Exceed And Excel bandwagon rolled on again this weekend with a metropolitan treble, while Carnegie came up with his latest Stakes success when Zankel landed the Listed Anniversary Cup (1700m) at Penang in Malaysia on Saturday.
Exceed And Excel’s bumper weekend kicked off with a double at Moonee Valley on Friday night. First off the mark was Maka Ena, who became the sire’s sixth individual juvenile winner this season when making a winning debut for the Lee Freedman stable over 1000m. A daughter of the Group-winning mare Living Spirit, Maka Ena was a $450,000 purchase from the Swettenham Stud draft at this year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, and she elicited very positive post-race reports from her jockey Dwayne Dunn, who declared her one of the stable’s best two-year-olds.
Exceed And Excel’s double for the night was then completed in the following race when another Freedman inmate, Mount Everest, posted his third successive victory. A son of the Group Two-winning Zabeel mare Legible, he is clearly developing nicely and further success looks assured.
The following afternoon, Exceed And Excel made it three city winners within 24 hours when his two-year-old daughter Optimizing won over 1000m at Morphettville.
In Malaysia, the consistent and durable Zankel, a son of the Bluebird mare Happiness, landed his latest victory by taking out the Anniversary Cup. A dual Stakes winner in Australia – of the Vain Stakes at Caulfield and the Port Adelaide Guineas at Cheltenham – prior to his export to Asia, the son of Carnegie has been a consistent performer at the highest level in Singapore and Malaysia for three years now, regularly contesting Group One races.
