Just like his sire Danehill, Exceed And Excel is proving to be a huge success in both hemispheres. Leading first- and second-season sire in Australia, he also recorded 23 first-crop winners in Europe and, halfway through his second year with northern hemisphere runners, he is sitting at the top of the two-year-old sires’ table for Britain and Ireland with 13 juvenile winners to his name to date.
Just behind him on 12 (14 throughout Europe) is another son of a great sire of sires, Kheleyf, who is by Green Desert and stands in Australia for the first time in 2009. Kheleyf finished 2008 as leading first-season sire in Europe with 30 winners of 44 races there and another winner in Japan.
During 2009, Kheleyf has sired six Stakes horses, four of which are two-year-olds, including the Royal Ascot runner-up Reignier in the G2 Norfolk Stakes. His first crop contained the Group Three winner Percolator, who struck four times as a juvenile and has been Listed-placed this year.
The veteran Green Desert still stands for Darley in the UK and top of the tree of his best sire sons is Cape Cross, whose southern hemisphere-sired offspring include the Group One winners Seachange, Mikki Street, Kindacross, Gaze and Able One, and who is currently leading sire in Europe in 2009, with dual Classic winner Sea The Stars among his 91 winners at the halfway stage of the European season.
Make sure you don’t miss out on the next exciting son of Green Desert to stand in Australasia, Kheleyf, already proving to be a reliable source of precocious young talent, is at Kelvinside, NSW in 2009 at a fee of $27,500 (inc GST).
