We recently helped our friends at Wasabi acquire the successful racemare and six-figure earner Tracy Flick carrying her first foal by Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, and believe she’ll be an excellent match for the Eclipse Award winner Up to the Mark in 2026.
Tracy Flick broke her maiden in late-running fashion going 1-1/16 miles over the Monmouth turf for owner/breeder Joe Allen and trainer Shug McGaughey, then added a Laurel allowance at that same grassy distance, as well as Tampa turf allowance at a mile. She was the prototypical turf miler, and demonstrated a blistering turn of foot in her races for her high-class connections. Her career record wound up at (8) 3-1-1 for earnings of $106,625, and she ran Equibase Speed Figures as high as 97.
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Tracy Flick is a daughter of the leading statistical sire of our generation in War Front, whose 119 black-type winners (including 71 graded winners) represent 11% of his foals of racing age. His daughters have already produced 56 black-type winners. Tracy Flick’s dam is the G3-placed Arch mare Stay the Night, who is in turn out of multiple black-type winner Louve Royale, and who is a half-sister to the dam of G2-winning 2YO and sire Copper Bullet, from a deep French family. Stay the Night has produced one other foal to race so far, that being Tracy Flick’s full-brother Victors Valiant, who earned just shy of $160k in his successful racetrack career.
Although War Front himself was a graded winner on dirt and sired some pretty good dirt horses, Coolmore’s support meant that his offspring wound up achieving a lot of their success on grass. And Tracy Flick’s female family has plenty of European and turf form in it, as well. So we will lean into those influences by sending her to the turf champion and multiple G1 winner Up to the Mark.
Although Up to the Mark broke his maiden sprinting on dirt, he reached his full potential when switched to grass, showing a wicked turn of foot from a mile to 1-1/2 miles on grass against the best company. And he’s a son of the extremely versatile Not This Time, whose offspring can win over all surfaces and distances, but who was the leading turf sire of 2025 by every black-type measure, plus purse earnings.
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Up to the Mark’s first foals were very commercially well-received as weanlings last fall, averaging $182,444 for nine sold, with prices up to $425k and $400k. He’s been well-supported at Lane’s End in both years at stud, and reportedly is even more popular heading into his third season than he was last year in his second.
Physically, both Up to the Mark and Tracy Flick are well-balanced, medium-sized horses that should be a perfect pairing of like-to-like, in addition to their similarities in proclivities.
Plus, Not This Time has excelled with both War Front mares (three black-type winners from six runners, including G2 winner Imaginationthelady) and Arch mares (two black-type winners from four runners, including G1 Breeders’ Cup winner Cy Fair).
So we love just about everything about this pairing, and can’t wait to see what it produces in 2027!