Breed-shaping sire Exceed And Excel retired
Exceed And Excel (Danehill), Darley’s long-standing global star stallion, has been retired from covering duties, it was announced yesterday.
After a career at stud spanning almost two decades, the 23-year-old stallion’s exploits in the breeding barn, which followed a hugely successful racetrack career, place him amongst some of the truly great sires.
“I can’t overstate how great an influence he’s been on this stud and the entire Australian racing and breeding scene,” Darley Australia’s head of stallions, Alastair Pulford, told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“As a very fast son of Danehill, who at that stage was highly recognised as an elite sire of sires, he was extremely popular from the word go.”
Out of the winning Lomond (Northern Dancer) mare Patrona, Exceed And Excel fetched $375,000 at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in 2002 when purchased by his eventual trainer Tim Martin, who famously bought the colt with no owners in mind.
The son of Danehill (Danzig) ended up in the ownership of Sydney lawyer Alan Osburg and businessman Nick Moraitis and proved to be one of the best sprinters of his generation.
“I inspected him as a yearling and he was a good-looking $375,000 yearling and Tim Martin chose him out, putting his neck on the line to buy,” Pulford recalls. “I think I remember Tim saying he didn’t have owners for him and that money at that time was a lot of money. But he found Nick Moraitis and Alan Osburg to take 50 per cent in the horse each and he raced very successfully for them.”
Advertising his instant precocity, Exceed And Excel landed the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) on his third start in 2003, laying the foundation for his brilliant three-year-old career.
The first of his two elite-level victories came when winning The Dubai Racing Club Cup (Gr 1, 1400m), which is now known as the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes in a track record time, before doubling his Group 1 tally a few starts later in the time-honoured Newmarket Handicap (Gr 1, 1200m) down the straight at Flemington.
These two Group 1s were supported by wins in the Up And Coming Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m), Royal Sovereign Stakes (Gr 2, 1180m) and the Roman Consul Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) which culminated in him being crowned Australia’s Champion Sprinter in the 2003-04 term.
In March 2004, Darley bought the stallion in a deal reportedly worth in the region of $22 million and he was introduced at a fee of $55,000, a fee Pulford described as ‘aggressive’.
“In 2004, an introductory fee of $55,000 was substantial and in a lot of ways he set the tone for the market for the next 20 years,” he said. “He was one of the first really expensive stallion prospects, along with Redoute’s Choice, who was purchased for a lot a few years before.
“We paid a lot of money for him and we weren’t shy in asking for decent service for him in his first year at stud. He was the go to horse for his first year at stud and everyone wanted a piece of him.”
In his first year at Darley, Exceed And Excel covered 144 mares, producing 104 foals and his success in the breeding barn was almost instantaneous.
“The first crop laid the foundations for what was about to come,” said Pulford. “He got the first two-year-old winner of the season in Melbourne, Exceedingly Good, and then quinellaed both divisions of the Blue Diamond Preludes [Wilander and Believe’n’succeed] and we just knew then that we had a very, very special stallion on our hands. To get that many precocious two-year-olds in his first crop was just unbelievable.”
To date, Exceed And Excel has sired 215 individual stakes winners in total, with his father Danehill, Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), More Than Ready (Southern Halo), Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) and Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) the only stallions with more stakes winners on their CVs. He remains the only Australian-bred sire to achieve the feat of more than 200 individual stakes winners .
Crowned Australia’s champion sire in 2012-13, his total stakes winners are headed by 18 Group 1 winners, ten of which have come in Australia, while his two-year-old stakes winner count stands tall at 54 and includes Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winners Reward For Effort and Earthquake, as well as Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Overreach and Microphone, winner of the Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), who has stood alongside his sire at Kelvinside for the past four seasons.
Pulford said his instant success could have had its downfall, but his progeny’s ability to train on after two, played a role in making Exceed And Excel the global sensation he is today.
“His reputation as a brilliant sire of two-year-olds might have been a noose around his neck, being only thought of as a two-year-old sire, but he certainly wasn’t.
“He is obviously a brilliant sire of two-year-olds, but a large amount of them went on to win Group 1s at three and four, like Bivouac, September Run, Helmet and the ones in Hong Kong like Mr Stunning and Amber Sky, so there were plenty of his progeny that were fantastic older horses. He wasn’t only a sire of two-year-olds, but he was certainly an outstanding sire of two-year-olds.”
The stallion’s progeny includes two winners of the breed-shaping three-year-old contest, the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), in the shape of September Run and now Vinery Stud-based first-season sire Exceedance.
His impressive numbers have been aided by Exceed And Excel’s exploits in the northern hemisphere, having begun shuttling duties in 2005.
He kicked off his career in Europe at Darley’s Kildangan Stud base in Ireland and unlike in his native Australia, was introduced to breeders at a modest fee of €10,000, which rose to as high as €50,000. He continued to shuttle to Europe, standing either in Ireland or Dalham Hall in Newmarket, for the next 15 seasons, covering his final book of mares at Kildangan Stud in 2020.
“Exceed started off here at high base, but he wasn’t expensive in Europe so certainly did it the hard way over there,” said Pulford.
“He paved the way for a southern hemisphere–bred stallion in the northern hemisphere and what he achieved in his career was truly remarkable. He was one of the first successful reverse shuttlers and he and probably Fastnet Rock have been the two outstanding ones.
“He was one of the first reverse shuttle stallions, we shuttled him to England and Ireland. His influence has been outstanding in both hemispheres, and as a broodmare sire he has also been outstanding.”
Exceed And Excel’s European individual stakes winners count stands at 81, three of which came at Group 1 level, including last year’s English 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) winner Mawj.
The stallion’s stakes winners count could be added to this weekend, when his multiple Group-winning son Cylinder lines up in the Newmarket Handicap, attempting to emulate his sire 20 years on from his famous victory in the Flemington contest.
“Just because he is retired from covering duties, doesn’t mean the story stops here. His last few crops aren’t the big crops he had at the beginning of his career, but the quality never dropped off,” said Pulford.
“There is plenty to look forward to and Cylinder is a great chance in the Newmarket on Saturday. He was second in a Golden Slipper last year and is a triple Group 2 winner.”
Exceed And Excel’s popularity continued throughout his career in the breeding shed and he retires at the top of his game, having signed off his final four seasons of covering duties commanding a fee of $132,000 (inc GST), the highest fee of his career.
However, his legacy lives on at Darley through his sire sons, Bivouac, whose first yearlings are being offered this year and first-season sire Microphone.
“It is in front of them now and Microphone has got some promising two-year-olds. We certainly like the ones we’ve got at home by Bivouac and some of them have gone to all the right homes as yearlings,” said Pulford.
Exceed And Excel’s influence on the breed is already being felt with his exploits as a broodmare sire. His daughters have produced 101 individual stakes winners, led by 14 top-flight winners, including Anthony Van Dyck (Galileo), winner of the Epsom Derby (Gr 1, 1m 4f), multiple Group 1 scorer Alizee (Sepoy) and July Cup (Gr 1, 6f) winner Ten Sovereigns (No Nay Never), who also landed the Middle Park Stakes (Gr 1, 6f).
“He is already an extraordinary broodmare sire. For an Australian sprint stallion to be the broodmare sire of a Derby winner and a July Cup winner, you just see high-class horses out of his daughters all the time,” said Pulford.
“You look for a reason for that and I presume it is just natural speed, he just puts that into his progeny and his daughters are able throw that on. There are some stallions that even outperform themselves as broodmare sires and I think Exceed is looking like one of those. He was a great stallion and is on track to be a great and perhaps even better broodmare sire.”