No weed around the Oaks for Hazy Dazy

Hazy Dazy is the brand name of a cooldrink in the US, “gluten-free and alcohol-free” but made from “premium hemp” and capable of getting you high as a kite.

It’s also the name of a South African filly about to make history at Turffontein racecourse in Joburg this coming weekend.

Bidders at a thoroughbred yearling auction might well have been feeling a bit hazy from partaking of premium weed when they allowed Hazy Dazy to be knocked down for the pittance of R37,500 in 2023.

Think about it: her sire, Act Of War, was the father of the phenomenal racehorse War Of Athena, who scooped the 2021 Triple Tiara – winning the prized treble of Gauteng Fillies Guineas, Fillies Classic and SA Oaks. War Of Athena herself had been sold for a mere R30,000 – going on to earn her owners nearly R2-million.

Hazy Dazy – the horse – has already amassed prize money of R1.6-million for her owners – mainly from winning the first two legs of the 2026 Triple Tiara. On Saturday, she has a go at the Wilgerbosdrift Bridget Oppenheimer Oaks and is odds-on favourite to become the second daughter of Act Of War to land an elusive Tiara.

Incredibly, Act Of War – a son of a former Durban July winner Dynasty – has been an unfashionable sire among South African breeders, with relatively few mares booked to him and his progeny selling fairly inexpensively. This says something about the thoroughbred industry and its marketing hype.

“It’s the dream in racing to get that one horse that is special,” said trainer Corne Spies after his filly won the Fillies Classic. “It turns out this one is ours!”

He might have added that an element of the dream is for a group of “smaller” owners – i.e. outside the mega-wealthy cohort – to luck out with a cheap buy that goes on to win some of the country’s biggest races. Such fortune reminds us of the aphorism that one doesn’t find great horses, they find you.

Spies and his merry band will be in the spotlight on Saturday as apprentice jockey Trent Mayhew tries to guide Hazy Dazy to her seventh victory in her ninth start, the R445,312 first prize and the R2-million bonus for cracking the Triple Tiara. Most punters and tipsters reckon the filly is a shoo-in to pull it off; she was at win odds of 0.63 with Hollywoodbets on Monday morning.

The venerable Oaks is just one of nine “blockbuster” features on Saturday’s 12-race card, with the Premier’s Champions Challenge, the Computaform Sprint, the Empress Club Stakes, the SA Derby and the Hawaii Stakes also boasting high-class fields.

It is a Hong Kong Jockey Club World Pool day, with internationally comingled tote pools on Races 6 to 9.