The 4-year-old has since won five of her 14 starts from David Pfieffer’s Warwick Farm yard and she produced a career-best performance on Saturday to win the G2 Gilgai S., at Flemington.
“I bred her with the Reid family and she was due to go to the Gold Coast as a yearling, but she got a bout of colic,” Bell River Thoroughbreds’ Andrew Ferguson said.
“It was pretty serious and she had surgery at the Scone Equine Hospital and spent 10 or 12 weeks there with Angus Adkins so we’re very lucky to have her.” - Andrew Ferguson.
“A week or 10 days later she had another bout. It was pretty serious and she had surgery at the Scone Equine Hospital and spent 10 or 12 weeks there with Angus Adkins so we’re very lucky to have her.
“I then bought her as a broodmare. About 10 months later I was talking with Angus, we’re pretty friendly, and he asked me about the mare. I said I wasn’t going to race her and he told me to put her in work and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Group 1 target
I Am Excited’s latest success in the Gilgai came off two minor placings at Caulfield.
“When we planned it all with Dave (Pfieffer) we said this would be her race,” Ferguson said. “The first time at Caulfield she wobbled around the corner and ran second to Ellicazoom, who was off the planet that day.
“Then in her second run she got blocked at the top of the straight and was in the wrong part of the track, so she’s banned from Caulfield now.” – Andrew Ferguson.
“Then in her second run she got blocked at the top of the straight and was in the wrong part of the track, so she’s banned from Caulfield now.
“Third-up over 1200 metres and we thought the Gilgai was her race and it might be a bit weaker with the Everest coming up and the Moir was the week before. Osborne Bulls came out and he would have been hard to beat, but luck’s a fortune.”
Pfieffer is now considering running I Am Excited next in the G3 Begonia Belle S., and should she perform up to expectations, will back her up a week later in the G1 VRC Sprint Classic.
“It’s probably not a dumb idea to have a throw at the stumps,” he said.
I Am Excited winning the G2 Gilgai S.
Pedigree notes
I Am Excited is a daughter of the General Nediym mare Lady Beckworth, who has also produced the G3 Frances Tressady winner Flippant (Hinchinbrook).
The stand-out in the family is the four-time Group 1 winner Atlantic Jewel (Fastnet Rock) while her half-sister Commanding Jewel (Commands) won the G1 Thousand Guineas.
I Am Excited is from the same family as multiple G1 winner, Atlantic Jewel. Pictured here winning the G1 All Aged Stakes
“It’s a pedigree that just keeps getting bigger and this mare is a valuable commodity as a Group 2 winner,” Ferguson said.
“It’s a pedigree that just keeps getting bigger and this mare is a valuable commodity as a Group 2 winner.” - Andrew Ferguson.
“Henry Field and Bruce Slade texted to congratulate me, they bought the dam out of my dispersal sale in foal to Hinchinbrook.
“She had the colt and he’s with Peter Snowden, who’s got a good opinion of him and Lady Beckworth had a colt last month by I Am Invincible, which is apparently a cracker and I think she’s going to Russian Revolution.”
