TONY Nerses paid £160,000 at the Premier Yearling Sale in Doncaster last year for a son of Sepoy and the Bishop Of Cashel mare Persario.

Bred by Elizabeth Grundy, joint-owner of the Group 1 July Cup winner Frizzante, the filly was consigned by Newsells Park Stud.

Now named Hilario and racing in the colours of Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar, made famous by Authorized’s Epsom Derby win, the colt won at the second attempt over six furlongs ay Haydock last Friday.

At the time of the sale the colt, from the first northern hemisphere crop of his sire, was a half-brother to four winners, notably Deacon Blues who was the champion older sprinter in Europe in 2011 when the gelded son of Compton Place won the Group 2 Qipco British Champions Sprint.

Another sibling, the Bahamian Bounty filly Holley Shiftwell, was runner-up in a couple of listed races.

Noted in the catalogue as a winner of one race from two starts was the Equiano gelding The Tin Man and weeks before the sale last year he won again.

top sprinter

Little were we to know that he would develop this season into one of the top sprinters, and less than 24 hours after Hilario’s victory The Tin Man was runner-up in the Group 1 32Red Sprint Cup at Haydock.

He is also a Group 3 winner at Newbury and a listed winner at Windsor.

Persario, the dam of all of these winners, is now 17 years old and she has a yearling filly, also by Sepoy, and a colt foal by Poet’s Voice.

Her four-time winning daughter If So, by Iffraaj, has her first produce selling at Tattersalls in October. He is a son of Lethal Force.

Persario won a couple of times, ridden by Frankie Dettori once, and she was trained by James Fanshawe who now handles the racing career of her son The Tin Man. Fanshawe was also responsible for the success of Persario’s best sibling Warningford and that son of Warning won the Group 3 Leicestershire Stakes on no less than three occasions. He also won the Listed John of Gaunt Stakes at Haydock twice and was runner-up in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes.