2026 Army Mule - Miss Malibu Individual Foal

Why We Bought This Horse

• Miss Malibu was covered on February 15, 2025, by Army Mule and checked in and confirmed in foal on March 2, 2025.   Our anticipation is that this foal will be Kentucky-bred. 
• This is a 2025-2026 Individual Foal Offering and is subject to the WVS Individual Foal Program Addendum to the Wasabi Ventures Stables Thoroughbred Management Agreement.    
•   Highlights of the program:
  • Fixed Price on the Offering - No Ongoing Bills
  • Limited Exposure - Like WVS Racing Programs, there is no chance for Future Expenses. If the Foal offering loses money, WVS absorbs those costs
  • Finite Time - The Foal Offering will be targeted to be liquidated sometime in its yearling year, so you know when an offering ends.  Because you are not buying the mare, you have a finite time period of commitment (e.g. 12 to 20 months)
  • Reduced Risk - WVS will only open a Foal Offering once a mare has checked in foal to the chosen stallion
  • Perpetual Breeders Bonuses - Even after the foal is sold, a Club member can continue to earn breeding bonuses for the racing life of the horse.

The BASE PRICE of this foal is $62,000

• Mare Lease $5,800
• Stallion Fee - $18,000
• Vanning Expense - $1,000
• Boarding Estimate - $22,000
• Sales Expense Estimate - $5,000
• Vet Estimate - $9,000
• Registration Fees (Jockey Club and State Fees) - $1,200

Miss Malibu comes from a deep female family with successful runners on both turf and dirt: her dam, Malibu Pier, was a multiple G2-winning turf runner who also won on all-weather and was G1-placed on dirt in the La Brea, and Miss Malibu’s black-type sisters include Coasted (SW/G1P on turf) and her full-sister Malibu Stacy (multiple graded-placed on dirt), as well as the recently G3-placed Mahina (on turf). Then a little further back, Miss Malibu’s family is strictly European turf. Miss Malibu herself is a daughter of the four-time leading sire Into Mischief, who is renowned foremost as dirt sire, but who also has gotten the likes of G1 winners on turf Gina Romantica and Atone.
So there is a lot of surface versatility in Miss Malibu’s genes, and we think it behooves her to visit a sire that can complement this attribute. With this in mind, and knowing that Into Mischief’s best early runners as a broodmare sire have come from A.P. Indy-line stallions, we think that Army Mule will be a perfect fit for Miss Malibu in 2025.
Army Mule is a stallion we are recommending heavily this spring, and here’s a quick refresher on why: even though he only ran three times, he was undefeated by a combined 22-1/4 lengths, including a win in the G1 Carter with a 114 Beyer; and even though he was the son of a regional stallion, his looks and stride were good for an $825,000 price tag as a 2YO in-training; and even though he started at the low end of the stud fee spectrum in Kentucky when made a $10,000 proposition his first year at stud (albeit at a farm, in John Sikura’s Hill ‘N’ Dale, which has made a regular habit of identifying brilliant but very lightly-raced prospects who succeed at stud), his progeny came out firing as 2YOs in 2022 and he wound up 4th on the Freshman Sire List behind Bolt d’Oro, Good Magic and Justify, who had all started at much higher fees and had at least a third more foals than Army Mule. Army Mule’s total of five black-type winners was just one less than the six that each of those top three freshman sires had, and he had seven additional black-type horses to his credit as well.
Since then, Army Mule has added G2 winner Danse Macabre and G1 winner One In Vermillion to his tally, as well as 2024 G2 winner Federal Judge. He is now up to 13 black-type winners from 142 runners (9.2%), with nine additional black-type horses (15.5%). And his AEI to CI ratio is an excellent (1.36/1.10). That CI also indicates that what Army Mule has achieved so far has been done without much help at all from his mates, which is not surprising for a stallion starting at the fee he did in Kentucky.
Army Mule had a somewhat quiet 2024 (though Federal Judge was a brilliant winner of the G2 Phoenix and among the favorites for the G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, while classic-placed Stanley House hit the board in a handful of graded stakes last year), but that wasn’t totally unexpected with his smallest crop of 2YOs coming to the races in ‘24. He did cover a third more mares in 2022 (115) than he did in 2021 (83), once people had seen his first yearlings and his first juveniles at the breeze-up sales, and that crop will be racing as juveniles in 2025.
His 2023 book was almost twice as big again (at 199) after that first crop had run in 2022, despite a fee raise to $12,500 (which went even higher towards the end of the breeding season as his book filled up). He covered 160 mares in 2024 at an advertised fee of $25,000 following the graded scores by One In Vermillion and Danse Macabre.
With a slight drop to $20,000 for 2025, knowing what Army Mule has already done and what he has every right to do in the next few years, Army Mule looks like easily the best value in Kentucky this year. The commercial market has still been kind to him despite his quiet year (his yearlings averaged $74,572 in ‘24 for 44 sold; in ‘23 it was $75,765 for 40 sold), and it will continue to embrace him as his better-bred yearlings come through starting in 2025.
His runners have also demonstrated that surface versatility that we’re keen on in a mate for Miss Malibu: One In Vermillion scored his big win on dirt at Saratoga, while Danse Macabre is at her best on the lawn, and Stanley House excelled over the artificial surface at Woodbine.
Physically, Army Mule is a stout, strongly-made and correct horse with all the substance that you’d want and just enough leg, and that’s exactly what Miss Malibu could use in a mate.
TrueNicks rates this match a “B+”, looking at AP Indy over Into Mischief, which has produced G1 winner Alva Starr (and White Abarrio, though he doesn’t factor into the rating). Meanwhile, Miss Malibu’s family has had success with the AP Indy son Malibu Moon, specifically with Miss Malibu’s G2-winning dam Malibu Pier and a seven-time winning full-brother.
What that means is that this foal will be inbred 3x4 to AP Indy, a pattern that has had some success generally, but more specifically for Army Mule himself, who has eight winners from 13 runners featuring AP Indy in their dams’ third generation, including his G1 winner One In Vermillion plus an additional black-type winner who happens to have AP Indy in the exact same place in its pedigree as Miss Malibu’s foal will (that black-type winner being one of three winners from just four runners bred that way).
All of which gives us hope that this pairing will produce a successful, and versatile, foal!