What a tough effort by Bennett Racing 3yo colt Southport Tycoon at Sandown on Wednesday. The colt having just his 2nd start after an impressive debut a Geelong 11th August over 1230m.
Southport Tycoon started 2nd fav at 3.40 behind the much touted heavily backed fav at 2.25 and the race proved to be between the two of them as expected. The Maher / Eustace Team felt that Southport Tycoon had taken very good improvement from his debut win and the Team at Ballarat had continued to teach the colt to race more tractably.
In the small field of 5 (one scr) there were in fact 3 debut winners in the field and the top weight Jewel Bay was a two time Metro winner who in fact had ran 3rd at Moonee Valley behind the unbeaten Scentify and Bennett Racings very promising Prinzerro. All the pre-race talk was about the depth of the race being of such a high standard for a Wednesday.
After jumping well, Harry Coffey placed Southport Tycoon one out one back getting a nice trail with the fav sitting right behind. The race was run at a moderate pace but the tempo turned on coming up to the turn. Southport Tycoon pulled out on straightening and the fav Akitcha was slightly wayward hooking out further. The race got messy early in the straight with a bit of interference as the two colts started their runs and no sooner had Southport exerted his authority, Akitcha hit top gear and ran to the front. With both colts rolling into the rail Southport Tycoon rallied and showed such toughness to out gun the fav and win by a long head.
It was a great sight to see both colts dig in and the strength and toughness shown by Southport Tycoon was amazing. Harry was thrilled with the win highlighting how the colt had come on noting that at Geelong he free sweated before and after the race but today he showed himself a more relaxed colt which a great sign moving forward.
Southport Tycoon is showing some real natural ability and some real guts. He showed at Geelong he can reel off some great sectionals and he showed at Sandown just how tenacious he is with a great will to win.
The colt will head off towards a possible start in the gr1 Caulfield Guineas in which he has come in from 51s to 21s after Wednesday’s win. He will start next in a couple of weeks in the Gr3 Guineas Prelude.
The win to Southport Tycoon’s record to 2-2:0:0 with Prizemoney: $75,250 incl Total Bonus: $32,900 Total Voucher: $30,000 being a VOBIS Silver eligible horse.
Southport Tycoon was a 300k purchase from the Daandine Stud draft at the 2022 Magic Millions Yearling Sale and owns an American pedigree on his dam’s side. His imported dam is the placed More Than Ready mare Ready To Rule. The daughter of Champion sire and long-time shuttle sire More Than Ready is a full sister to the Listed winning & Gr1 placed mare Grace And Power. Also imported into Australia, Grace And Power is the dam of Gr1 Darley Classic winner Delectation and the unraced Gracie’s Lass. Gracie’s Lass of course is the dam of recently retired to Newgate Farm 2 time Gr1 winner Artorious who also placed at Gr1 level overseas in his two international campaigns. A son of Yulong Stud’s Champion sire Written Tycoon, Southport Tycoon is bred on the very successful Written Tycoon / More Than Ready cross, more recently responsible for producing the 2 time Gr1 winning sprinter Coolangatta.
What an exciting colt this boy is and giving his owners a great thrill and the possibility of running for a Gr1 Caulfield Guineas next month. Thankyou to the Maher / Eustace Team for their patience taken with Southport Tycoon which is now starting to reap the rewards for his owners.