Exceller (May 12, 1973 – April 7, 1997) is widely considered one of the best horses to race in the United States not to win a year-end championship.
Triple Crown winners in the same race (and only the second ever to do so in his career), Exceller is now remembered more for the tragic manner of his death and the horse rescue movement it helped inspire.
[2] Shipped to England at age four, he wound up a half-length behind The Minstrel and Orange Bay in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and won the Coronation Cup.
As a five-year-old in 1978, Exceller had his best season on the racecourse, winning 7 of 10 starts, all in top company, on both dirt and turf racetracks.
With Bill Shoemaker in the saddle, he came from 22 lengths back to beat Triple Crown winners Seattle Slew and Affirmed in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
Affirmed's saddle had slipped, effectively taking him out of the race, and Seattle Slew had hung up almost suicidal fractions on the lead, but Exceller still powered through the Belmont Park mud to win by a nose.
In sum, he had won 15 of 33 starts, including 13 stakes races, and placed in 11 more in France, England, Canada, and the United States and had earned $1,654,003.
He shared a small stallion barn with his sire Vaguely Noble and classic-winning champion stablemate, Youth.
Or, the owner might have been able to have handed him over to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, the world's largest and most respected organization devoted to equine rescue.