Exceeding the limits

This story was printed in Inside Racing magazine, November issue. Out now.

It wasn’t so long ago that Exceed And Excel’s stud career was going through one of those lulls that can strike stallions from time to time. During this period, it didn’t take long for breeders to cast doubts on the value of the stallion, especially those spruikers from rivals studs to Darley, where Exceed And Excels stands in the Hunter Valley.

I also had my doubts about him – not as a genuinely good sire of winners, but more as a stallion capable of producing consistently high-class Group 1 performers and sire sons. I certainly doubted him as a stallion deserving of a $110,000 service fee, which he reached very quickly by his fifth season in 2008 and again in 2009.

Like most of Australia’s stallions, Exceed And Excel has had his fee cut – he will stand this season for $66,000 – but in his case it was as much about concerns that he was a top-shelf stallion than the economic forces of a global fiscal hiccup.

Exceed And Excel, who was bought by Darley for a reported $24 million in 2004 just before winning the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap (1200m, Flemington), burst on the stud scene with his first juvenile crop in the 2007-08 season with some brilliant young winners, including the headliners Exceedingly Good, Sugar Babe, Believe’N’Succeed and Wilander. The following season he produced Reward For Effort to win the 2009 Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes.

Up went the service fee from $55,000 and so, too, did the expectations. However, the subsequent results didn’t match the hype – before the exciting Helmet burst into the Sydney autumn this year, winning the Group 1 Sires’ Produce Stakes and the Group 1 Champagne Stakes, Exceed And Excel’s supporters were not filling the stands.

Earlier this year, when a yearling buyer asked me to assess a list of stallions who held his interest, my summary of Exceed And Excel was that he was a modern-day Rory’s Jester – a consistent sire of winners and precocious speed. I felt it was a good time to buy them as his progeny were back to realistic prices for a stallion of this calibre.

I think we all need to reassess Exceed And Excel after his outstanding 2011 in both hemispheres.

Exceed And Excel now rates as the most successful “reverse” shuttle stallion to come out of Australia by far. He is carrying the flag for the Australian-bred stallion in Europe where his stocks are on the rise.

In August, Exceed And Excel’s three-year-old daughter Margot Did provided him with his first northern hemisphere Group 1 winner when she won the Nunthorpe Stakes (1000m) at York, and within a few days he sired two more Group 2 winners – the unbeaten star filly Best Terms (Lowther Stakes, York) and the exciting Excelebration (Hungerford Stakes, Newbury).

Exceed And Excel sits sixth on the combined England and Ireland general sires’ list, behind Galileo, Montjeu, Oasis Dream, Dansili and Danehill Dancer. It’s worth noting that if you take the imported So You Think’s earnings (about AUD$700,000) out of High Chaparral’s figures, he’d drop from eighth to 33^rd. (figures as at August 23). That’s not the case with Exceed And Excel who is siring a host of high-class winners across the board.

Excelebration, also the winner of the Group 2 German 2000 Guineas (1600m) in June, is now rated the second best 1600m three-year-old behind the champion Frankel. So impressive is the colt that Darley’s international rival, Coolmore, has in some ways “bitten the bullet” and recognised the colt’s stallion credentials by buying a significant stake in the horse. Coolmore was rewarded when Excelebration won the Group 1 Prix du Moulin at Longchamp in September. The colt is likely to head towards the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Locally, Exceed And Excel continues to rack up the winners; none better than the Peter Moody-trained Kulgrinda, winner of the Listed Penthouse Graphics Stakes (1000m) at Moonee Valley in August, and now one of the favourites for the Group 1 Manikato Stakes (1200m) at the same track in September.

Darley Australia’s managing director, Henry Plumptre, said Exceed And Excel’s success is no surprise to Darley. “When a stallion starts with such a successful first crop, it is hard to sustain it. You only need to look at the stock we have planned from Exceed And Excel in the next five years to see how high we rate him,” he said.

“What he has done in Europe, especially last month, is phenomenal considering he his covering a different demographic off a mare from a fees of only £10,000 and £12,000. The bosses’ (Sheikh Mohammed’s) persistent has paid off and the horse will cover a really good book of mares next northern hemisphere season.”

Exceed And Excel in August shuttled back to Darley’s Kelvinside property near Aberdeen in the Hunter Valley.

Exceed And Excel is not the first high-profile stallion to have a lull before a resurgence in his stud career – his own sire, the great Danehill, had a similar “down time” in Australia in 1997 and 1998 when he struggled to get a decent colt despite siring three Golden Slipper winners at the start of his stud career, only to surged back in popularity in 1999 when Redoute’s Choice burst on the scene. Even Zabeel lost some gloss in the two years before Efficient emerged as the champion young stayer in 2006 and 2007 with wins in the AAMI Victoria Derby and the Emirates Melbourne Cup.

Exceed And Excel is from the imported Lomond (Northern Dancer) mare Patrona. While he has a European and North American pedigree, he was foaled at the famed Kia Ora Stud – just across the Hunter River from Darley in the Segenhoe Valley – and he has all the powerful physical attributes to the archetype Australian sprinter.

Exceed And Excel – Darley’s role call

3YOs

Helmet ­ – multiple G1 winner
Aerobatics – promising Group-placed filly
Chinchilla – multiple Stakes winner

2YOs

Sister to Believe’N’Succeed
Half-brother to Retrieve.
Colt from Brockman’s Lass
Colt from Mnemosyne
Filly from Media
Filly from Brom Felinity

Yearlings

Colt from Brom Felinity
Half-brother to Neroli
Half-brother to Skilled
Half-brother to Mearas
Filly from Camarilla
Filly from Hosannah
Filly from Portillo
Filly from Rinky Dink

Mares booked in 2011

Virage de Fortune (Anabaa-Virage) – Multiple G1 winner
Eldarin (Marauding-Voltage) – dam of Mearas
Grilse (Rahy-Sous Entendu) – dam of Alverta
Rinky Dink (Distorted Humor-Peebinga Princess) – G1 winner