Romantic Warrior stole the show at the Hong Kong International Races with a dominant, historic win in the G1 Hong Kong Cup that elevated him out of the shadow of the great Golden Sixty once and for all, and left Japanese runners winless for the year in offshore Group 1 contests.
“He’s the best,” was James McDonald’s no-nonsense summation from the saddle.
The Danny Shum-trained gelding confirmed that he is peerless at 2000m around Sha Tin and perhaps all points beyond.
It was a fine exhibition: the tactical pace to make the most of gate one; the keenness switching to professionalism as he relaxed into a comfortable rhythm down the back; the speed and resolution to move up and press the lead three-wide on the turn; and the heart to outbattle Japan’s 2023 Derby winner Tastiera in quickening imperiously to a length and a half victory over another of Japan’s big-hitters, the deep-closing star filly Liberty Island.
McDonald stood in the irons as the line approached, looked back at his nearest pursuer and shrugged, as if to say, ‘is that all you’ve got?’
Romantic Warrior stopped the clock at 2m 00.57s, the first three-time winner of the Hong Kong Cup, matching Golden Sixty’s three Hong Kong Mile wins, and sailed past the retired great’s world record prize money haul to a new high of HK$177,322,706.
The win capped a great day at Sha Tin’s end of year showcase for Hong Kong and Romantic Warrior’s rider James McDonald. The man crowned ‘World’s Best Jockey’ only two nights earlier also picked up silverware with Voyage Bubble in the Hong Kong Mile.
Then there was Hong Kong’s emerging new superstar Ka Ying Rising who nailed his first Group 1 in the Hong Kong Sprint under Zac Purton, while the British-based Giavellotto won the G1 Hong Kong Vase, a race in which Hong Kong horses rarely figure prominently.
Romantic Warrior’s trainer Danny Shum echoed McDonald in hailing his stable star “brilliant,” before explaining to the gathered media why he had not made himself readily available during the build-up.
“I stayed in the stable the whole time, I didn’t want to go out to talk too much,” he said. “My old boss Ivan Allan taught me to work hard and it brings luck. So I keep it in my mind, I work really hard.”
The late Allan was renowned for travelling the likes of Fairy King Prawn and Indigenous to overseas successes in the late 1990s and early 2000s and Shum has followed his lead, winning the G1 Cox Plate in Australia and the G1 Yasuda Kinen in Japan. He confirmed Romantic Warrior will now press on to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, chasing more riches.
“His owner, Peter Lau, he says it’s once in a lifetime to go to the Saudi Cup, the world’s richest race: we explained it is very different on the dirt, but if you never try, you never know … He’s the best but I have to take a bigger challenge and I haven’t been to Dubai for 25 years.”
Liberty Island showed that she had bounced back from both the suspensory injury that sidelined her for much of the year and the disappointing last start effort in the Tenno Sho Autumn when short of peak fitness. Yuga Kawada settled last year’s Japanese Fillies Triple Crown winner back in the field and had to make a wide run in the straight.
“Liberty Island ran her race,” said her trainer, Mitsumasa Nakauchida. “I had discussed with the jockey beforehand about prioritising her rhythm. She showed her characteristic late kick and considering her previous race too, she ran properly all the way to the end.
“Coming around the outside, I thought, ah, Romantic Warrior in front is going well and not stopping, while Tastiera was stretching out well too, but also ‘Liberty’ was, so maybe we could catch him.”
She thundered home in closing 200m splits of 10.93s and 11.53s – edging Tastiera back to third – compared to the winner’s 10.93s and 11.58s, but the inability to sit closer from her starting position in gate five cost her.
One mark of a champion is winning when things don’t go your way, so with that in mind, David Hayes announced himself “Relieved!” after Zac Purton drove Ka Ying Rising to G1 Hong Kong Sprint glory. The scorching $1.10 favourite picked up his maiden Group 1 win in battling style.
Ka Ying Rising carried immense expectations after he had won his three lead-up races and smashed Sacred Kingdom’s 1200m Sha Tin track record for good measure. The four-year-old did not disappoint, but nor did he light up the arena with another dominant display, prompting Hayes to state that “everything is up in the air” in terms of an intended Classic Mile attempt in late January.
A half-length score from Helios Express, with Japan’s Satono Reve a close third under Joao Moreira, had Hayes reassessing.
“He’ll go in the Centenary Sprint Cup in the middle of January and we’ll make a decision after that about whether he goes to the Classic Mile. After that run, today, I wouldn’t,” he told Idol Horse, “But I know why he ran like that, I’d have been making excuses if he’d have got beat.”
That would give Ka Ying Rising just an 11 day break into the Classic Mile but Hayes is not too concerned about that aspect.
“I know he pulls up beautifully. Every run he’s eaten up and you could run him a week later if you wanted to, but I wouldn’t run him unless he’s absolutely dominant in the sprint,” he said.
“He’s a very good horse, the horse that ran second, and we beat him very easily when we had the run of the race: today we didn’t have the run of the race and it made him vulnerable. For ‘Ka Ying,’ everything went wrong.”
Ka Ying Rising was unable to relax into a settled rhythm after Purton had to get busy to achieve an advanced spot due to a tardy start from gate 11 of 14, and then had Victor The Winner pressing on his own left-side flank.
“I think people sort of underestimate the nuances of the way races can be run and Victor The Winner sitting a head in front of me the whole race just didn’t allow my horse to relax and settle,” Purton said. “It had him fired up and he was using a lot of energy through the whole running of the race and obviously that’s told a little bit in the end in his performance.
“But a normal horse can’t absorb that and still perform at that level, so there’s a lot more credit to his performance than there might look.”
Voyage Bubble has never known the adulation Romantic Warrior or Ka Ying Rising have garnered, but the 2023 Hong Kong Derby winner showed that if you want to beat a Hong Kong miler on home turf, you’d better be very good.
Ricky Yiu’s six-year-old was second to Golden Sixty in last year’s G1 Hong Kong Mile and with the great one enjoying a relaxing retirement, Voyage Bubble stepped up and claimed this year’s race under James McDonald. It was Yiu’s first Group 1 win at the event since Sacred Kingdom won his second Hong Kong Sprint in 2009.
McDonald let Beauty Eternal take the lead, shifted to race second outside that rival, and urged Voyage Bubble to the lead at the 300m mark to draw away from the running-on Soul Rush – another Japanese place-getter – for a length-and-a-quarter win. It was all very straightforward.
“He’s a better horse than last season. Mentally he’s more mature … and he’s got taller, he’s bigger,” Yiu said before going on to praise McDonald. “Of all the jockeys that have ridden him, James rides him the best.”
It was a messy race behind Voyage Bubble, though, and another horse with early season claims to Golden Sixty’s vacated crown, Galaxy Patch, saw those disintegrate as he put in a run that was as luckless as it was disappointing, climbing on heels with nowhere to go and then being squeezed out before boxing on to seventh.
The G1 Hong Kong Vase over 2400m looked a wide-open affair on paper, but more Group 2 than Group 1, and when the five-year-old stayer Giavellotto, trained by Newmarket-based Italian Marco Botti, burst clear halfway up the straight, that impression was upheld.
The G2 Yorkshire Cup winner – over a mile and three quarters – actually had some good speed figures in the book and unleashed a sharp turn-of-foot for Oisin Murphy who was nailing his first win at the Hong Kong International Races.
“Credit to Oisin,” Botti said. “The first thing he said after the Irish St Leger was this race, he was adamant so we followed his advice.”
Japan’s Stellenbosch was another that made up ground late after racing near the tail from a wide gate. The G1 Oka Sho winner advanced wide but ran out of steam in the final half furlong to finish third under Moreira.
Her trainer Sakae Kunieda has Dubai in mind: “We will consider the Dubai Sheema Classic,” he said. “The distance was not a problem today, she raced at the back and had to come very wide which was not ideal.” ∎
