World Racing Weekly: Rebooted And Rehabbed Romantic Warrior A “Well-Oiled Machine”, Says Physio

Warrior’s Tale Has Movie Potential

Romantic Warrior’s career long since stepped into the realm of the incredible, but with his return to the races in the G2 Jockey Club Cup this weekend comes the possibility of reaching into the fantastical.

Danny Shum is keeping his team grounded with cool heads and realism – take nothing for granted with horses, never mind those coming back from leg surgery seven months ago – but with talk already of a return to Riyadh for some unfinished business in the G1 Saudi Cup, the story is shaping like a movie script.

It has it all – almost: the owner’s romantic vision, the impeccable rise of a dominant champion, the world fame of overseas victories, the epic big-money defeats, the injury, the road to recovery. All it needs now is the triumphant return and that Riyadh revenge for his defeat to Forever Young last February.

The lead characters are obvious: trainer Danny Shum forging his own way; the sporting owner Peter Lau; the ‘world’s best jockey’ James McDonald. And then there is the supporting cast, the skilled surgeon, Dr Lawrence Chan, assistant trainer Ben So, the travelling team of work rider Gary Lau, Henry Chan, Andy Luk, Marcus Chung, Gary Poon, even Hugh Bowman helping out in barrier trials, and not least, the expert physiotherapist Tom Simpson.

Simpson is an important figure in the background of the Romantic Warrior story. The Australian has travelled the world with the 10-time Group 1 winner, flown in to Hong Kong, Riyadh and Dubai from his Sydney base to work with and assess the gelding’s musculoskeletal system. He has been an important element in the team getting the champ back to race readiness.

“His first barrier trial back was a huge test,” Simpson tells Idol Horse.  “It was a 1700-metre trial back at Happy Valley (in September) and that was probably the one he felt the most out of anything I’ve ever had to do with him. So, it gives you an indication of how far he’s had to come back.”

The how and why of Romantic Warrior’s success and his imminent return from injury can be attributed in part to the horse’s own remarkable athleticism and in part to Shum’s skilful team management.  

“Danny is the ultimate professional, he’s meticulous,” Simpson says. “It’s like being involved in a Formula 1 car, everyone plays a role with this horse on a daily basis. The farrier checks his feet before he moves every morning, and when I’m there I’m there doing stretches before he’s walked out, then I’m stretching him after he’s walked out, I’m stretching him after he’s saddled, then I treat him after he’s worked. Everyone does their role every day.

“He’s a well-oiled machine and it’s incredible to see those results. Touch wood, it’s been a pretty faultless progression back into training.”

Simpson puts a lot of that down to Shum knowing Romantic Warrior as an individual.

“He’s been able to tinker the training along the way to maximise the outcome,” he says, noting that there have been a couple of “key differences” to how he himself has approached Romantic Warrior’s treatment since the surgery.   

“Number one is ensuring that nothing was changing from a muscle soreness perspective or a gait assessment perspective, that the riders continue to be happy with him as the work increases: with an injury like that the fear is that the biomechanics are altered because he’s compensating. If that happens then comes secondary injuries, etc.

“Danny was adamant that we’d be very proactive, so I think that was a huge bonus: it wasn’t like we were waiting until he started two weeks out from a trial before we were allowed to intervene. So, anything that was there secondary to the injury we would pick up on straight away and be all over it.

“The other one was taking a bit of time,” he continues, “but Danny gave him the time, which is excellent. Then there’s the added bonus that this horse is just an amazing patient to deal with. He’s got a fantastic gait and biomechanically he’s very suited to racing, so he’s found it pretty well easy in comparison to what other horses would have, I believe.”

One fear after an injury is the effects of muscle wastage, but Simpson says Romantic Warrior has been remarkable in that regard, too, despite being a rising eight-year-old.

“Muscle wastage is a huge indicator of compensation occurring and or soreness,” he says. “So, because of that compensation you might be getting muscle wastage in the right-side hamstring and the surgery was left forelimb. He hasn’t shown any of it, it’s absolutely remarkable.

“He’s a dream to work with, I’m very, very lucky,” he continues. “If there’s something he doesn’t like he’ll let you know. He’ll give you a bit of a warning with the ears back and then the next one won’t be so gentle. Fortunately, we get along really well.

“Having a connection with the horses is huge, especially the elite horses, they’re very strong-minded. You need to leave your ego at the door: if what you’re doing is not the day to be doing it, you don’t do it. Alternatively, when they’re amenable and they’re working with you, they are just fantastic and professional to work with.”

Simpson’s work in Hong Kong is not exclusive to Romantic Warrior or the Shum stable. He is also hands on with the horses stabled with Mark Newnham, Jamie Richards and David Hayes, all of whom he says have bought into the importance of equine sports medicine.

“I’d always had an interest in seeing what Hong Kong was all about, seeing if there was an opportunity there with the horses in that unique environment,” he says. “I got a bit of an opportunity with Danny at the time that Romantic Warrior went down to the Cox Plate, so that was sort of my job application and it seemed to go well. I established a bit of a relationship, professional and personal, and it’s been great ever since.”

He started his life around horses in his hometown of Barraba in country New South Wales, about 500km north of Sydney. He did a bit of pony club as a kid but nothing with racehorses until he moved to Sydney and took his knowledge as a human physiotherapist into the equine sphere.

“I knocked my way around Randwick and managed to open a few doors,” he says, but it was hard going at first. That was about 20 years ago and horse physiotherapy was not a mainstream treatment.

“You really had to show your wares, and early doors I was trying some methods and techniques that hadn’t been used the way I was doing them. Fortunately, we had some good results and that gave me the confidence to really go full steam ahead.

“It’s exactly the same as human physiotherapy but then you do the necessary training, you do a Masters degree in equine, you adapt the exact same principles: clinical reasoning. At the end of the day they’re an athlete, it’s just they’re a quadruped. Anatomically they’re very similar, physiologically they’re similar, and you treat them the same way, so your acupuncture, your range of motion assessments, your palpation assessment, your gait assessment, assessing them at the trot, that all comes into the clinical picture.

“Then you treat them with the same modalities, you know, TENS application, heat, ice, stretching: they’re very amenable to it, you’ve just got to work it out. At the end of the day, it’s evidence-based science.”

Simpson has been back in Australia since Romantic Warrior’s last gallop, but he will return to Hong Kong on Monday, the day after the champion’s comeback race, to assess and treat. Like the rest of the team, his feet are on the ground, but if all goes well, he knows there’s an epic tale in the making.

“Everyone’s got cool heads about it at the moment, but if Romantic Warrior puts in a good performance, we’ll start to get a bit excited,” he adds. “Then it’s the stuff of a movie.”

This Week In Horse Racing History

One of the 20th century’s greatest jockeys, Eddie Arcaro, retired from race riding on November 18, 1961. The Hall of Famer who rode the Triple Crown winners Citation and Whirlaway in a storied career, finished third in his final race – the Pimlico Futurity – and bowed out with a then-record tally of $30,039,543 in purse money.

Hong Kong’s champion jockey Douglas Whyte jetted down to Perth, Australia this week in 2016 and on November 19 won the G1 Railway Stakes (1600m)  at Ascot Racecourse, riding the Lindsey Smith-trained Scales Of Justice.

On November 19, 1995, Russell Baze rode his 400th winner that year on Royal Boutique at Golden Gate Fields, becoming the first jockey to win 400 races for four years in a row.

Idol Horse Reads Of The Week

Australian racing Hall of Famer and Hong Kong racing expert Shane Dye joins the Idol Horse line-up this week and in his first column the two-time Sydney champion, who rode for eight years in Hong Kong, shares his insights about James McDonald’s winless start to his latest stint in the city, Mark Newnham’s success, and that void race at the weekend.

Shane Dye

“Hong Kong Will Humble You – No Matter Who You Are”

Mark Zahra talks to Adam Pengilly about doing things his way and looks into what makes the Melbourne-based star one of the best jockeys around as he heads to Japan to ride Docklands in the G1 Mile Championship.

Adam Pengilly

No Off Season, No Apologies: How Mark Zahra Rewrote The Jockey Playbook

Romantic Warrior heads towards his return from surgery in Sunday’s Jockey Club Cup and this David Morgan feature from Saudi Arabia last February looks at the teamwork that went into – and still goes into – preparing the Hong Kong champion for his big-race assignments.

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Racing Photo Of The Week

Date
16 November, 2025

Photographer
@Akauni294

Location
Kyoto

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Global Blackbook

Danon Century’s win at Tokyo last weekend maintained the three-year-old’s upward curve and suggested he is capable of competing in the highest grades. The Fierement colt has already been tested in Group 2, the Spring Stakes over 1800m at Nakayama in March, but that came at only his second start, after a smart newcomer win at Tokyo in February. He clearly wasn’t quite ready for the step up in grade at that stage and was 10th of 12.

Trainer Kiyoshi Hagiwara backed off and it was another five months before Danon Century was seen again, placing second at Niigata when dropped down to a mile in the Gozurempo Tokubetsu. He has won both starts since at 1600m, rattling over the top of his rivals at Tokyo on October 13, then last time out tracking the leader before quickening under hands and heels to win despite being lathered in sweat.

World Horse Racing Calendar: What’s Coming Up

🇯🇵 Mile Championship
Kyoto, November 23

G1 Yasuda Kinen winner Jantar Mantar will attempt to become the ninth horse to add the Mile Championship to that win in the same season and connections are expecting a victory that should clinch the champion miler title for the four-year-old. But Jantar Mantar faces the grey Gaia Force, his nemesis in the G2 Fuji Stakes last time, as well as Soul Rush, winner of this race last year as well as the G1 Dubai Turf in April. International raiders have failed to win the Mile Championship since the first attempts in 2003, but British trainer Harry Eustace is undeterred by that stat and has sent his well-travelled G1 Queen Anne Stakes winner Docklands to try and end the foreign-trained hoodoo.

🇭🇰 Bank of China (Hong Kong) Raceday
Sha Tin, November 23

The big lead-in to December’s Hong Kong International Races has a trio of Group 2 contests and they’re not short on headline horses. The world’s best sprinter Ka Ying Rising is the one to beat in the G2 Jockey Club Sprint over 1200m and is reported to be fresh and ready after returning to Hong Kong from his win in the G1 The Everest in Sydney. The G2 Jockey Club Cup at 2000m sees the return from injury of the incredible Romantic Warrior and he will be up against Hong Kong’s Triple Crown winner, Voyage Bubble. Meanwhile, in the G2 Jockey Club Mile, the rising star My Wish will be aiming to put down another firm marker for the December feature.

🇯🇵 Japan Cup
Tokyo, November 30

There has not been a foreign-trained winner of the Japan Cup since Alkaased in 2005 but Calandagan is as worthy a challenger as there has been in the interim, following his wins in the G1 King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and G1 Champion Stakes this season. His trainer Francis-Henri Graffard has enjoyed the best season of his career but will know his gelding faces a tough task in the 2400m feature against Japan’s field of stars, which could include the last two G1 Tokyo Yushun winners Croix Du Nord and Danon Decile, as well as the recent G1 Tenno Sho Autumn hero Masquerade Ball.

🇯🇵 Champions Cup
Chukyo, December 7

The race previously known as the Japan Cup Dirt has been dominated the past two years by Lemon Pop, but with Godolphin’s dirt track star retired, there is an opening for a new hero to emerge. This 1800m contest on Chukyo’s left-handed circuit could see Godolphin’s Japan Dirt Classic winner Narukami step into Lemon Pop’s shoes by continuing his rise to the very top after notching four wins on the bounce to take his career record to five wins from six. The three-year-old could face another prolific winner, Silk Racing’s four-year-old W Heart Bond whose win in the G3 Miyako Stakes last time gave her a career tally of six wins from seven. ∎

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