Bivouac

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.

Strategy One
Mr Prospector-line mares should suit Bivouac whose single line of that sire will appear in the sixth generation of future matings with good effect.
Mares by Street Cry, Street Boss, Street Sense, Hallowed Crown, Dubawi, Makfi, Secret Savings or Swiss Ace (or with a second dam by those stallions) would be ideal prospects.

Strategy Two
Bivouac is by a son of Danehill and inbred to Danehill, with some of the best results for that great sire coming when combined with Sadler’s Wells bloodlines.
There are numerous sources of Sadler’s Wells blood in Australia through his many successful branches. Among them are Galileo and sons, High Chaparral and sons such as So You Think, also Montjeu, Singspiel, Medaglia d’Oro, Barathea and Scenic just to name a few. Mares by any of those sires or their sons would be fine choices for Bivouac.
Champion broodmare sire Encosta de Lago is by Sadler’s Wells’ brother Fairy King, and he has already nicked well with Bivouac’s sire. So Encosta de Lago mares should definitely be included in this strategy.

Strategy Three
Introduce more La Troienne. Reinforcing La Troienne (Teddy – Helene De Troie by Helicon) has been one of the most successful strategies used to produce elite thoroughbreds over the past half-century and shows no sign of waning.
Bivouac has multiple lines of La Troienne, which have doubtless contributed to his own brilliance. Reinforcing these via Buckpasser, whose third dam is La Troienne, can be achieved by using mares sired by Galileo, Dubawi, Seattle Slew, Last Tycoon or their sons. Those are some of the leading quality sources of Buckpasser blood, but La Troienne can also be accessed through stallions carrying a strain of her other descendants such as Poker, Belong To Me, Noble Bijou, Caerleon, Allez France, Boucher, Priceless Gem and Polish Navy.

Special mention should be made of Galileo and Dubawi-line mares, as both those sires have pedigree similarities to Bivouac’s broodmare sire More Than Ready. They also fulfil some of the other requirements outlined and appeal very strongly for Bivouac.