WHEN London Prize won a bumper at Worcester on his debut, Ian Williams trained the runner-up who was nine lengths adrift of the winner. London Prize, a son of Teofilo, raced then for John Ferguson who subsequently gave up training to concentrate on his growing role with Godolphin.

London Prize joined many others in a dispersal from Bloomfields at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham April Sale last year and was purchased by Ian Williams for £70,000. He has been a multiple winner for his new stable since and made a huge dent again in his purchase price on Saturday when winning the Grade 3 Matchbook Imperial Cup at Sandown.

Winning this feature race makes him the first of his dam’s eight foals and seven winners to land a blacktype race. Three of his siblings however were placed in such races. Categorical, a Diktat half-brother to London Prize, won 10 races and seven of these were over fences. It was in that code that he ran second in the Listed John Smith’s Handicap Chase at Aintree.

Two half-sisters to London Prize, both by Singspiel, were stakes placed on the flat. Jathabah was runner-up in the Group 2 Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket and last year she had her first foal at stud, a filly by Shamardal. The other daughter of Singspiel is the listed-placed Fragrancy and she is already the dam of a stakes winner by Shamardal, namely Pelerin who was a listed winner at Ascot and Dundalk for Marco Botti.

London Prize is out of the Kris mare Zibet, a winner from Ed Dunlop’s yard. She was sold to Petches Farm when carrying the son of Teofilo for 38,000gns but he proved to be her final produce. It proved to be an unprofitable investment as London Prize only realised 20,000gns as a yearling, bought by Mags O’Toole. He appeared in the sale ring, again at Tattersalls, five months later in a breeze-up sale from Eddie O’Leary’s Lynn Lodge Stud and quadrupled in value to 80,000gns.

Zibet is one of nine winners out of the stakes-placed Fabulous Dancer mare Zonda, and most notably she is the grandam of the top-class Singspiel racemare Hibaayeb. At two she won the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile Stakes at Ascot, was placed in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary at three and then travelled to the USA to add the Grade 1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes to her haul of four wins. Now she is the dam, with her second foal, of the 2016 Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Wuheida, a daughter of Dubawi. She is a leading classic fancy this spring.