Share in Masked Marvel added to next week's Arqana catalogue

A 1/50th share in stallion Masked Marvel has been added to the February Mixed Sale catalogue and will be offered to buyers on the first session of Arqana's event next Monday.

The St Leger winner and a son of Montjeu from an excellent German maternal family, Masked Marvel is standing at Haras de la Tuilerie at a fee of €5,000 and is proving a National Hunt sire of some potential. His early progeny include black-type performers Gars En Noir and Pacha Senam and the likes of La Danza, Teahupoo, Kill Bill and Arbarok.

A recent winner of the Listed Prix Bernard de Dufau and third in the Prix Gaston Phoebus at Pau last weekend, the consistent Laskalin was another name added to the event and will be offered by trainer Mikael Mescam.

Running in the colours of ML Bloodstock, the Martaline gelding is a sibling of two Grade 3-winning French jumpers in Laskaline and Kinglaska.

They join the three other wildcards already in the catalogue, one of which has just had a giant pedigree update.

Hardi Du Mesnil, who obliged on his hurdling debut at Pau last month, is a Masterstroke half-brother to Gaillard Du Mesnil, the €250,000 acquisition to the Willie Mullins stable who is currently the ante-post favourite for the Ballymore Novices' Hurdle after winning Saturday's Grade 1 Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown by a cool five lengths.

This particular sale, which sells a variety of Flat and National Hunt stock over several days in Deauville, received another notable boost at the Dublin Racing Festival when one of its graduates struck gold.

Great Pretender mare Grangee, bought for just €25,000 last year, completed a glorious weekend for the Mullins stable in the Grade 2 mares bumper.

The catalogue has also been bolstered by the recent addition of Meredith, runner-up in the Grand Prix de la Ville de Nice last year and a winner over fences and over hurdles. The Francois-Marie Cottin-trained mare is a daughter of the Kahyasi mare Popova, herself a high-class performer.

Christophe Ferland's Otambura, who finished third on her first two starts at Pau and a three-year-old daughter of Kingman out of the Listed Criterium de Lyon scorer Kambura, completes the line-up.

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