Tycoon Star faces wide draw in $1 million Goodwood test

Barrier 16 has turned Tycoon Star’s Goodwood bid into a live pressure test, because the Lindsay Park colt will have to overcome the widest gate in Saturday’s 16-horse field to win South Australia’s biggest sprint.

The Group 1 at Morphettville has been a target from the moment Tycoon Star won the Tobin Bronze Stakes on April 25, and the stable’s belief has only grown since then. Ben Hayes said the visor change was a “masterstroke”, and the colt’s last-start win gave Lindsay Park reason to keep him in Adelaide and build straight toward the $1 million, 1200-metre feature that closes the Adelaide Autumn Carnival.

Tycoon Star’s case is strong on class. He has never been out of stakes company, and the Tobin Bronze lifted him into a race where three-year-olds have recently punched above their weight, with Reserve Bank in 2025 and Royal Merchant in 2023 both completing the Tobin Bronze-to-Goodwood double. That history matters, but so does the draw. Extragalactic, another key three-year-old, landed barrier six and carries 50kg, a far cleaner assignment than Tycoon Star’s extreme outside gate.

The riding change adds another wrinkle. James McDonald was aboard for Tycoon Star’s Tobin Bronze win, his first success in South Australia, but he heads to the Gold Coast for the Hollindale Stakes meeting. Luke Currie takes over at Morphettville, and his job is straightforward but difficult: settle Tycoon Star, avoid doing too much early, and still have enough position to attack when the sprint tightens inside the final 400 metres.

That is the equation Ben, Will and J.D. Hayes must solve. The stable said Tycoon Star had stayed in Adelaide after his latest win and thrived there, which is why they are still confident the colt can handle a much tougher setup. He is by Written Tycoon out of Miss Iano, was bought as a weanling and later reoffered through Yulong’s yearling consignment at the 2024 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale, and he is racing with future stallion value in view. Saturday’s Goodwood will show whether that profile can survive a brutal draw or whether the wide gate blunts one of the week’s most compelling sprint prospects.