Nafaayes, winner of Saturday’s Gr2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas, sports a red hot pedigree, with various relatives featuring prominently around the world.
The winner of four of her six outings, and a dual Gr2 winner, Nafaayes shares her sire, Exceed And Excel (Danehill), with 153 stakes winners.
Nafaayes wins the Gauteng Guineas on Saturday (JC Photos)
This includes the promising Australian two-year-old, McLaren, who gave his sire a group/graded double on the day, when landing the Gr3 Canonbury Stakes on debut on Saturday. McLaren is a ¾ brother to Exceed And Excel sired Gr2 Silver Slipper winning sire, Headwater.
Versatile
One of his sire’s best stallion sons, Exceed And Excel has not only been a champion sire – he topped the Australian General Sires List in 2012 – but he is also now making his mark as both a sire of sires and broodmare sire.
Exceed And Excel
Exceed And Excel’s Caulfield Guineas winning son, Helmet – best known as the sire of 2018 Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow – also made news over the weekend with his son, Tin Hat, landing the Gr3 Manfred Stakes at Caulfield on Saturday, while Exceed And Excel’s outstanding broodmare daughter, Essaouira, is the dam of Saturday’s Gr2 Expressway Stakes winner, Alizee (Sepoy). The latter, whose previous victories include the Gr1 Queen Of The Turf and Gr1 Flight Stakes, is a half-sister to Gr1 Golden Rose winning sire, Astern (Medaliga D’Oro) and to the highly vaunted Australian two-year-old, Tassort (Brazen Beau), a current leading fancy for the Gr1 Golden Slipper to be run later this year.
Exceed And Excel’s 2yo stakes winners number nearly half his tally of 154 black type winners, and he is also broodmare sire of two of the leading 2yo’s in Ireland last season, Anthony Van Dyck (Galileo) and Ten Sovereigns (No Nay Never), as well as group winners Bounding, Prompto Response, Mission Impassible, Encryption, She’s So High, and South African Gr3 winner, Fish River.
Helmet is not the only sire son of Exceed And Excel to have come up with a Gr1 winner, with the sire’s triple Gr1 winning son Excelebration producing 2017 Gr1 St James’s Palace Stakes winner, Barney Roy.
Northern Dancer
Exceed And Excel has been responsible for 11 Gr1 winners, and last year (he was born in 2000) he stood for a fee of A$82 500 in Australia. Like Danehill’s fellow standouts, Fastnet Rock, Redoute’s Choice, Dansili, Flying Spur and Rock Of Gibraltar, Exceed And Excel is closely inbred to Northern Dancer.
Acceleration!
Exceed And Excel is by no means the only star to shine brightly in Nafaayes’ sizzling pedigree. Nafaayes’ dam, Decelerator, who has a two-year-old filly this season by reigning Australian champion sire, Snitzel, was a high class 2yo, who won the GR3 Debutante Stakes and ran second in both the GR2 Golden Rod and GR3 Pocahontas Stakes as a juvenile.
Also victorious in the Martha Washington at three, Decelerator is a daughter of former us Champion 2YO, Dehere, a son of multiple champion US sire Deputy Minister, who has become a very successful broodmare sire.
Among the Gr1 winners produced by Dehere mares are US champion, Will Take Charge (Unbridled’s Song) and the latter’s Gr1 Florida Derby winning half-brother, Take Charge Indy (A P Indy), and the Gr1 winners, Graydar (Donn Handicap, sire of recent US stakes winner Gray Attempt), So Many Ways (Spinaway Stakes), Maid Of Heaven (Spring Champion Stakes), and dual Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner, Midnight Lute (Real Quiet). The latter has gone on to enjoy success at stud and ranks as the sire of Gr1 winners Midnight Bisou, Midnight Lucky and Shakin’ It Up.
Daughters of Dehere – whose own sire is broodmare sire of over 230 black type winners – have produced over 80 stakes winners the world over.
Big Earner
Decelerator is a three-parts sister to the Dehere sired Paris Notion, the dam of 2019 Gr1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational winner, City Of Light (Quality Road). City Of Light, now retired to Lane’s End in Kentucky, was an exceptional racehorse, who ended his racing career with a 5.75 length romp in the Pegasus World Cup, and also won all of the Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Triple Bend Stakes and Gr2 Oaklawn Handicap. He retired to stud having won six of 11 races and earned over $5.6 million in stakes.
Rated one of the best racehorses in North America last year, City Of Light will stand for a fee of $35 000. Paris Notion is out of Gr1 winner, Fabulous Notion, who is the third dam of Nafaayes and dam of Gr1 Test Stakes heroine, Fabulously Fast (by Deputy Minister). This is also the family of Gr1 winners Cacoethes (Turf Classic), Subordination (Hollywood Derby), and US champion turf female Fiji.
Fabulous Notion, in turn, was a daughter of the regally bred stallion, Somethingfabulous, a Northern Dancer half-sister to Secretariat and Sir Gaylord.
Nafaayes wins the Ipi Tombe on Summer Cup day (JC Photos)
Nafaayes traces back directly in female line to the mare Enigma, who is also the fourth dam of Kentucky Derby winner, Reigh Count, the sire of US Triple Crown winner and champion sire, Count Fleet.
