2026 Up to the Mark - Paw Prints Individual Foal

Why We Bought This Horse

• Paw Prints was covered on May 5, 2025, by Up to the Mark and checked in and confirmed in foal on May 22, 2024.   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 liquidated at the time of his/her weaning from the mare, so you know when an offering ends.  Because you are not buying the mare, you have a finite time period of commitment (e.g. 6 to 18 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 $70,833
  • • Mare Lease $13,333
  • Stallion Fee - $22,500
  • 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 

As a daughter of the Eclipse Champion Turf Male Kitten’s Joy, who went on to be a perennial leading turf sire, and a half-sister to a French G1W, a French G3W/G1P filly, and three additional black-type runners who earned that status on the lawn, the Juddmonte-bred Paw Prints has always been most likely to throw turf horses herself. We will lean right into those green tinges with a 2025 match to Eclipse Champion Turf Male Up to the Mark.

Originally a $450,000 yearling purchase by Mike Repole & St. Elias Stables, Up to the Mark was highly thought of as a juvenile (he reportedly outworked eventual graded winner Wit at Saratoga as a juvenile prior to experiencing a series of minor setbacks which delayed his debut for a year) before eventually winning first-time out at Saratoga as a 3YO going 6 furlongs on dirt. Disappointing in a series of allowance races the rest of that season, he made his turf debut at Gulfstream in his first start as a 4YO, and rocketed home by 4 lengths in 1:33 for the mile. Another impressive Gulfstream allowance win followed, this time in 1:40 for 1-1/16 miles, before he stepped straight into Grade 1 company for his stakes debut, which was a 3rd place finish in Keeneland’s Maker’s Mark Mile, only a neck behind the reigning Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Modern Games.

Stretched out to 1-1/8 miles on the Kentucky Derby undercard, Up to the Mark scored a devastating win in the G1 Turf Classic, circling the field off the turn and drawing off with his wicked turn of foot. He showed that same acceleration again when taking the G1 Manhattan at 1-1/4 miles in 1:59 1/5 on Belmont Stakes Day, earning a 105 Beyer Speed Figure on the heels of his 103 BSF at Churchill.

After missing some time with a minor issue over the summer, Up to the Mark shortened back up for Keeneland’s G1 Coolmore Turf Mile, and, after an eventful trip, was able to run down the favored Master of the Seas (who won the Breeders’ Cup Mile in his next start) just on the wire to win his third straight Grade 1.

Connections opted for the 1-1/2 mile Breeders’ Cup Turf over the Mile for him at Santa Anita to close his career, and Up to the Mark ran a game race to finish 2nd after a wide trip, beaten under a length by dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin, who snuck through with a ground-saving trip. Up to the Mark retired with a career record of (12) 6-1-2, and earnings of $2,511,050, and he covered a full book of 164 mares in his debut season at Lane’s End in 2024 where he stood for a $25,000 fee. His first in-foal mares averaged over $100k at the ‘24 mixed sales.

Up to the Mark’s sire Not This Time is one of the most exciting young sires in the country, and continues to ascend the stud fee ladder. He has already had success with mares from the El Prado sire-line that Paw Prints traces to (six winners from nine to race, including a pair of BTWs and another BTP runner, corresponding to an “A++” on TrueNicks), and with mares from the Gone West sire-line (he being Paw Prints’s broodmare sire), including G1W Just One Time and G3W No More Time (“A+” on TrueNicks). This gives us confidence in this cross, even though Paw Prints’s female family hasn’t been tried with the Giant’s Causeway sire-line at all (or even the Storm Cat sire-line more broadly).

Physically, Paw Prints and Up to the Mark are both solidly-made, medium-sized horses and they should be a nice like-to-like pairing on physicals as well as proclivities.