Exceed And Excel raced past the most significant milestone of his stallion career when his colt from the Bernardini mare Peace Force sold for $2.1 million in the opening minutes of the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in Sydney on Tuesday, 6 April.
The price is the highest ever paid for an Exceed And Excel yearling.
Offered by Vinery Stud, the colt, Lot 5 in the catalogue, went to Tony Fung whose attraction to the stock of Exceed And Excel prompted him to add another of the Darley stallion’s colts – also from the Vinery draft - for $1.05 million (Lot 63).
Exceed And Excel’s second seven-figure sale of the day took his total of million dollar plus yearlings to be sold at auction to 11.
Vinery’s Adam White said the colt from Peace Force had been the most viewed of the sale.
“We knew he was a good sort of colt right the way through from foal to weanling,” White said. “He was a special one, he was out of his box more than any other horse on the complex.”
In a session which also produced a $900,000 Exceed And Excel filly (Lot 122) and with another colt by the long-serving Darley Star making $370,000 (Lot 32), giving the champion progenitor a day-one average of $1.1 million for his four to sell making him leading sire by average on Day 1 for three or more sold.
Peace Force, the dam of the top-priced colt, is a half-sister to Eremein whose five G1 wins included the Australian Derby, the 2021 edition of which is run on Saturday.
