The Australian-based OTI Racing and Breeding operation was provided with its first stakes winner in South Africa on Saturday when the smart Under Your Spell took on and beat the boys in the Grade 2 Hawaii Stakes at Turffontein.
Trained by Sean Tarry, who bought her unseen online, she readily came home to defeat last year’s SA Classic winner Red Saxon by a length and a half, with pacemaker Humdinger three-quarters of a length back in third.
Becoming the first filly to win the seven-furlong contest since Overarching in 2006, Under Your Spell was bred by Summerhill, being by Capetown Noir and out of the unraced Irish-bred Deceptive Charm, a daughter of Kingmambo.
It a family replete with quality as Deceptive Charm is a full-sister to the Group 3-placed Shahin and a half-sister to Park Hill Stakes heroine Meeznah.
The trio are in turn out of the stakes-winning Sadler’s Wells mare String Quartet, a full-sister to Listed winner and Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes second Casey Tibbs and to the dam of the ill-fated Triumph Hurdle winner Our Conor.
Under Your Spell, a Grade 1 winner at two when landing the Allan Robertson Championship at Scottsville in June 2021, is a half-sister to the Grade 3-placed In Cahoots.
The winner of eight wins and seven placings from 19 starts, she is likely to be targeted next at the Grade 1 HSH Princess Charlene Stakes Empress Club Stakes in April.
The Hawaii Stakes is named after the top-class South African performer who sired the 1980 Derby winner Henbit.
The above is a replication of an article written by Racing Post Bloodstock and can be read in full here.