Masked Marvel

 

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It all seems so obvious now.

A wide-margin winner of a hotly contested St Leger by the proven National Hunt influence Montjeu and out of a high-class mare from a stellar, sound and stamina-laden German family?

Of course Masked Marvel was going to prove to be a decent jumps sire.

Okay, stallion performance is never that easy to predict, and lots of other horses with similarly cast-iron credentials have turned out to be duds, but that’s not the case here. He has read the script and stuck to it.

That much was evident on Saturday, when he was represented by Kalif Du Berlais, a game winner of the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle at Kempton for Paul Nicholls, and Leech, an easy winner of the bumper at Chepstow on only his second start for Evan Williams.

For good measure, Captain Marvellous wasn’t disgraced in third behind his paternal half-brother in the Adonis, and Heltenham ran second in a valuable handicap chase on the same card.

That all continued a fine season for Masked Marvel, in which Teahupoo has taken the scalp of Impaire Et Passe in a repeat victory in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, Predators Gold has run second in two Grade 1 novice hurdles at Leopardstown, and Geromino has relished a return to hurdles by taking two valuable handicaps at Doncaster.

Nicholls was quick to rule Kalif Du Berlais out of the Triumph Hurdle, but Masked Marvel could still have a formidable little team going to the Cheltenham Festival.

Teahupoo is favourite for the Stayers’ Hurdle, in which he finished a close third last year, Baring Bingham hope Predators Gold was put up by Patrick Mullins as his big-priced fancy for the meeting in Monday’s Racing Post, and Maskada could be back to defend her Grand Annual crown.

Teahupoo, gagnant des Hatton's Grace Hurdle Gr.1

Junta Marvel, not seen since scoring impressively in a Grade 3 mares’ bumper at Punchestown last April, with the useful Fun Fun Fun and Brucio behind, is also an intriguing entry by Willie Mullins in the Champion Bumper.

They could enhance Masked Marvel’s already impressive roll of honour, headed by his two Grade 1 winners – Sel Jem, who fairly bolted up in the all-important Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris in 2022, and Teahupoo. He has 22 black-type horses in total, and no end of promising performers coming through the ranks.

His performance at stud so far is all the more creditable for the fact that, despite appearing to have so much in his favour, he retired to Haras d’Etreham in 2015 at a fee of just €3,000 and was still commanding €4,000 at the operation’s sister stud Haras de Tuilerie as recently as 2020.

His books have varied in size, going from 55 in his first year, to 91 in his second and to 123 in his third, but falling to 69 in his fourth, before another bounce back to 136 in 2019 and 125 in 2020. So, for whatever reason, racecourses haven’t been swamped with his progeny.

Masked Marvel, reported to have ‘a small health issue’ that restricts his book a little, served 119 mares at a €5,000 fee in 2021, 118 at €7,000 in 2022 and 92 at an increased fee of €12,500 in the wake of Sel Jem last year. His best days should be ahead of him, then.

Irish pinhookers have inevitably picked up plenty of Masked Marvel youngsters on their French buying missions, and will no doubt keep them in their sights in future, as they have received some stonking profits for them at the store sales.

All but one of the 20 three-year-olds by the sire offered at the Goffs UK Spring Store Sale, Goffs Land Rover Sale and Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale last year changed hands, with a filly from Belleville Bloodstock and a gelding from Sluggara Farm each making €105,000. Another 11 made at least €50,000.

Willie Mullins, who trains Masked Marvel’s multiple Grade 1-winning close relation Vauban, is on to the sire as well, but has preferred to buy horses by him already with form direct from France. He and his team gave €200,000 and €140,000 for his AQPS bumper winners Kel Histoire and Kappa Jy Pyke at the Arqana Autumn Sale in November. It would be no surprise to see either emerge as the next wonder horse to come out of Closutton.

SEL JEM, Winner of Grand Steeple Chase de Paris, Gr.1

The rise of Masked Marvel – who, it should be added, has also managed to get a Flat Group 1 runner-up in Australia in True Marvel – has come at just the right time for Haras d’Etreham’s National Hunt roster, as its long-time proven big-hitter, Saint Des Saints, has just turned 26 years old.

Here’s hoping that the outstanding son of Cadoudal keeps going for a few more years, but he can’t go on forever, and at least his owners now have a worthy successor.

In fact, Masked Marvel has benefited from the brilliance of Saint Des Saints, as several of his best performers are out of his older studmate’s daughters, including Heltenham, Maskada and Sel Jem, as well as useful French performers Arbarok, Ital Conti and Pacha Senam. There are two more winners among the 17 representatives of that cross on the Racing Post website besides.

Whether the prominence of the nick is down to opportunity, with Etreham’s regular clients owning mares by similar stallions, or to Masked Marvel simply being a very good sire and Saint Des Saints an exceptional one, rather than some mystical genetic affinity between the two horses, is open to debate. We will no doubt see a lot more horses bred in a similar fashion, anyway.

All in all, it looks like another success story for French National Hunt breeding. In hindsight, it does seem odd that a British or Irish stud didn’t take a chance on him when he came to the end of his racing career in the mid 2010s.

Granted, he was a little disappointing in the three seasons following his St Leger victory, and no-one could have known quite how much his maternal family would take off, with one half-sister producing Arc victor Waldgeist and another breeding St Leger runner-up New London, along with Vauban popping up on the page.

However, he was a Classic-winning son of Montjeu, whose son Hurricane Fly was still in his pomp over hurdles at the time, and whose early sons to stud Authorized and Walk In The Park were beginning to emerge as useful jumps sires.

But, then again, maybe it took being based in France for him to make it as a stallion.

I’m becoming increasingly concerned that horses who retire into National Hunt roles in Britain and Ireland will struggle to carve out a name for themselves when their earliest progeny are always butting heads with more forward French-breds – including, now, those by Masked Marvel.