Success lives here

Exceed And Excel’s best-performed son to retire to stud.

Crowned World Champion Sprinter, Champion Three-Year-Old, amassing $5,696,110 in prize money and retiring a six-time Group winner, three at G1 level.

Brilliant at two: G3 Kindergarten Stakes by two lengths to Libertini.

Better at three: a dual-G1 winner of the G1 Golden Rose and G1 Newmarket Handicap (like Exceed And Excel).

Blitzed them at four: a 3 1/4 length winning margin in the G1 weight-for-age sprint - the Darley Sprint Classic at Flemington.

First-crop yearlings sold to $675,000 at Magic Millions, leading trainers and syndicators backing Bivouac include Bjorn Baker Racing, Ciaron Maher Racing, Danny O'Brien Racing, Dalziel Racing, Dynamic Syndications, McEvoy Mitchell Racing, Michael Freedman Racing, Moody Racing, Prime Thoroughbreds, Proven Thoroughbreds, Te Akau Racing, Triple Crown Syndications, Chris Waller Racing and Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.

Pedigree notes

Bivouac is the best and fastest son of Exceed And Excel, Australia’s leading influence for speed and early maturity.

The best sons of outstanding sires have made the best candidates to succeed their sires right throughout thoroughbred history, with just a few spectacular examples including Gainsborough/Hyperion, Nearctic/Northern Dancer, Halo/Sunday Silence, Wilkes/Vain, High Chaparral/So You Think, Dubai Millennium/Dubawi, and Galileo/Frankel. Exceed And Excel/Bivouac looks like a logical progression.

He is bred on the Danehill/More Than Ready mix which has produced Golden Slipper winner and successful sire Sebring and multiple G1 winner and Golden Slipper winning sire Rebel Dane. It is a formula for stallion success, especially as Bivouac is the best horse bred on the cross.

To complete the picture, Bivouac had brilliant early speed, a defining characteristic of successful sires.

G1 Statistics

Bivouac’s sire Exceed And Excel has left 18 individual G1 winners to date which are by 17 different broodmare sires, two being out of Elusive Quality mares.

7/18 have a return of Mr Prospector in the mare.

4/18 have a return of Sadler’s Wells in the mare.

Exceed And Excel has sired multiple G1 winners with returns of Star Kingdom, Sir Tristram and Danehill. Versatility is Exceed And Excel’s strong suit and we could reasonably expect the same from his son Bivouac.

Best Nicks

The best guide to a young stallion’s future nicks is the nicking pattern of his sire and sire line. This turns out to be accurate in a majority of cases, but be aware, not always. 

Bivouac’s sire Exceed And Excel has already left 210 Stakes winners and has more than 16 runners out of daughters of over 30 different broodmare sires so there is plenty of evidence to hang your hat on.

For Exceed And Excel the most individual Stakes winners are out of mares by: Elusive Quality (11), Encosta de Lago (7), Lonhro (7), Snippets (6), Singspiel (5).

The highest percentages of Stakes winners to runners are with mares by: Gone West (21%), Snippets (20%), Elusive Quality (18%), Dehere (17%), Singspiel (13%), Encosta de Lago (12%).

The Exceed And Excel nicks with both Elusive Quality and Encosta de Lago are based on over 50 runners each so are very reliable figures. Bivouac already has a second dam by Elusive Quality leaving Encosta se Lago as a preferred option. Once again the Mr Prospector line looks promising, with Gone West featuring.

Both the biggest number of individual Stakes winners and the best score on percentages are with Mr Prospector-line broodmares.

The “Darley” nicks involving Exceed And Excel/Lonhro mares and Exceed And Excel/Street Cry mares are both very successful and are represented by two of the star two-year-olds of the 2022/23 season, Barber and Cylinder respectively.

The absence of Danehill-line mares on these lists is significant, although he will be a generation further back in future matings with Bivouac.

Inbreeding / Linebreeding options

Here we have several interesting possibilities which augurs well for Bivouac.

The similarly bred Rebel Dane has three of his four best runners carrying a return of La Troienne in the dam line. Inbreeding to the greatest mare of the 20th century has been very successful overall, and specifically in the case of More Than Ready who has three offspring of La Troienne in his dam and a further two lines of her influential sire Teddy. There are several commercial sires carrying further lines of La Troienne, the more the better even if in the sixth or seventh generation of a planned mating.

As Bivouac is from the family of the great broodmare sire Canny Lad who crosses well with Danehill, of which Bivouac already has two lines, it might be a good option to find mares carrying Canny Lad, or from Canny Lad’s family, possibly Danehill free.

There are a couple of obvious candidates here in I Am Invincible and Rubick and their sons. Mares by that pair would seem ideal prospects.