Fresh from securing the title of Australia’s champion first-season sire, Exceed And Excel has been given the ultimate thumbs-up by being chosen as the mate for Miss Andretti as the great sprinting mare begins her stud career.
On the back of the great results which Exceed And Excel achieved with his first juveniles last term, he already had a very impressive collection of mares booked into him for the forthcoming season. The addition of Miss Andretti is now the icing on the cake, and a sure sign that he is regarded as a great sire of the future.
A daughter of the impeccably-bred Royal Academy stallion Ihtiram, Miss Andretti has established her place in the sprinting pantheon since joining Lee Freedman’s stable from West Australia after winning two Group races over 1200m at Ascot over the WA Summer Carnival in 2005. She was an immediate hit in Melbourne, winning her first Group One when taking the Manikato Stakes at Moonee Valley in September 2006. A veritable swag of top-class victories followed, and 2007 saw her victorious in six world-class races: the Lightning Stakes, Australia Stakes, Newmarket Handicap, Schweppes Stakes, Victoria Racing Club Stakes and, in an historic international victory, the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot. Her duels with the brilliant Queensland filly Gold Edition were the stuff of legends: three times they ran the quinella, but sadly for the connections of the flying grey, it was Miss Andretti first, Gold Edition second on all three occasions.
Miss Andretti failed to recapture her best form in 2008 and the decision was taken to retire her after she ran unplaced at Caulfield last Saturday. That same meeting, incidentally, saw Exceed And Excel register his first three-year-old Stakes success, as his daughter Sugar Babe, the winner at two of the Debutant Stakes at Caulfield, led home a Darley-sired trifecta in the Group Three H.D.F. McNeil Stakes, beating Whobegotyou (Street Cry) and Cardinal Virtue (Elusive Quality). This came only seven days after Exceed And Excel had recorded his best northern hemisphere victory to date, his daughter Infamous Angel winning the Group Two Lowther Stakes, transferred to Newmarket from the abandoned Ebor Meeting at York.
