‘If You Retire, I Retire’: Danny Shum, Romantic Warrior, And The Bond That Almost Broke Him
After reaching 900 career wins, Danny Shum speaks on pain, purpose and the horse he sees as a son.
DANNY SHUM Chap-shing has a habit of dropping bombshells in interviews, though they usually concern where in the world his globetrotting superstar Romantic Warrior will head next. Last December, speaking with the HK Racing Post, he revealed something far more personal.
“I’m almost 66, and I don’t think I have to earn a living now. Therefore when Romantic Warrior retires, I have a very, very, very high chance to retire as well,” he said, using the Cantonese phrase “hou dai” 好大 – very big – three times for emphasis.
When Romantic Warrior was sidelined last year after a fetlock injury required surgery, Shum’s famously intense work ethic gave way to something darker. He sought psychological support via the Jockey Club.
“I spoke with my wife, suggesting to resign … I don’t want to see Romantic Warrior suffer … If my wife agreed with my decision then I would hand in the (resignation) letter. I spoke with the psychologist in the club, asked them why I was easily exhausted at that time … I can work for 12-plus hours per day in the past, easily. Those three months were really tough for me.”
His wife Christy and son Aaron encouraged him to continue.
On a cool Wednesday night after a quiet all-weather fixture at Sha Tin, Shum walks slowly back toward the stables. He has just trained his 900th winner and the milestone has him in a reflective mood. On Sunday, his beloved horse will contest the Group 1 Stewards’ Cup, having made a courageous comeback and claimed a record-setting – and relieving – fourth consecutive Hong Kong Cup victory last month.
“Of course, it’s a privilege and a pleasure to train a Romantic Warrior,” Shum says when asked about the pressure of training the highest-earning racehorse in history. “But when he was hurt, it was hard, it was very painful for me, I could feel it. It’s just like if he was my son. Any parent in the world would think it, when their child has a fever or is hurt – you feel it more – and you would say ‘I want to take the pain for you.’ So it was difficult because he has been so good for me.
“When I see him in the stable he comes to me, almost like he wants to kiss me. So I basically said, ‘if you retire, I better retire too’.”
The candid interview prompted a conversation with club officials, whom Shum – now 66 – assured he would see out the five-year extension granted when he turned 65. But the period of introspection had already stirred something new within him, including renewed purpose and goals.
Where, after all, do you go after Romantic Warrior? What is left to prove with a horse who has proved almost everything?
Shum’s former stable jockey Shane Dye recently wrote in Idol Horse not only of his old boss’s relentless work ethic but of an attitude to lifelong learning that revealed itself in incessant questions.
“Always asking questions and never satisfied,” Dye recalled. “He learned from Ivan Allan and John Moore, two of the most successful Hong Kong trainers ever, but Danny was never content just copying what someone else did. He wanted to understand how and why things worked.”
Now Shum says his purpose has shifted toward passing that knowledge to the next generation – particularly his assistant trainer, Kyle Lai Chi-ming.
“When I see him, I see me like I was in Ivan’s stable. He wants to learn, he is very good,” Shum says. “I found my new goal – to bring the younger people up. So I push them.”
Of course, Shum hasn’t stopped learning. He still asks questions, even of rival trainers, and he still has more to achieve.
“The first ten years of my career I was not that good,” Shum says. “In the last ten years I have done much better.”
It sounds like a typically harsh self-assessment from a notoriously hard marker, but the numbers support the claim. Shum’s first ten seasons brought 304 winners; the eleven and a half since have yielded nearly 600.
“I concentrate more on my job and my results back that up,” he says. “I’ve trained some great horses.”
We stop near the stable gates. The giant digital clock above them reads 11:15pm and Shum’s night isn’t finished yet.
He has spent a career asking questions, but his greatest teacher, he says, has been Romantic Warrior – and it is that bond between horse and human he most wants to pass on to Sha Tin’s next generation of horse people.
“Touch them more, touch them, feel them. Get your hands on the horses,” he says of the message he has for his staff. “Follow directions, follow my ways, but understand all of your horses first.” ∎
