Champion sire and former star sprinter Exceed And Excel is enjoying a purple patch thanks to the deeds of his sons and daughters, and this week he adds another major milestone to his ever-impressive resume.
Returning to join the Australian Darley stallions roster for 2020, the world’s best sire of juveniles is home to stay after completing 15 duties as a reverse shuttle stallion at his northern hemisphere home in Ireland at Kildangan.
On the track over the past year Exceed And Excel’s sons and daughters did what they are bred to do, adding five G1 wins to their sire’s tally. In Australia, two of those top-level victories were provided by Bivouac who put his name alongside that of his sire by producing a dominant win in the Newmarket Handicap at Flemington, having earlier taken the Golden Rose.
Bivouac is a member of Exceed And Excel’s 2016 crop which also includes the G1 winners Microphone and Exceedance and the G2 winner Standout, all successful in a season that produced 12 individual Stakes winners in Australia with another three during the corresponding period in the UK, Europe and South Africa.
Success on the racetrack flowed into the yearling sales ring and Exceed And Excel produced one of his best seasons with three million-dollar colts, the top-priced a colt from the G1-winning mare Platelet acquiring $1.8 million.
And on a global level, Exceed And Excel enhanced his standing as the world’s leading sire of two-year-olds in 2020, his total passing 500 individual winners.
Exceed And Excel’s success has been recognised by breeders who have supplied him with a full book of mares for the coming season that includes Vegas Showgirl, the dam of the world champion mare Winx, whose 2017 filly by Exceed And Excel, Covent Garden, has shown great promise.
The 2020 book also includes the G1 winner Dixie Blossoms and Bivouac’s dam Dazzler.
For Darley stallions in Australia, the permanent return of Exceed And Excel to his home at Kelvinside in NSW has been welcomed with a mixture of admiration and sentiment.
“Exceed And Excel has become the flagbearer for Australian dual-hemisphere stallions,” said Godolphin Managing Director Vin Cox.
“He’s proven himself in Europe with horses like Excelebration, who chased Frankel home so many times and won three G1 races himself, another son, Outstrip won a G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf in America and in Australia he’s produced horses like Guelph, Helmet, Earthquake and Mr Stunning who’s won HK$60 million in Hong Kong.”
Darley’s Head of Sales in Australia, Alastair Pulford, describes Exceed And Excel as one of the most reliable stallions available.
“He’s such a good stallion because he gets the winners of the big races year-after-year,” Pulford said.
“After 16 years at stud he has a winners-to-runners ratio of better than 70 per cent and he’s clearly the best sire of juveniles anywhere in the world. It sets him apart from the rest.”
“I think the team in Ireland would have liked to have had him back for another season, but we’re looking forward very much to having him home now and looking after him.”
