Romantic Warrior could be outside of Hong Kong for up to four months as the champion’s team weighs up the best travel plan for an audacious assault on the G1 Maktoum Challenge Round 1, the G1 Saudi Cup, and the G1 Dubai World Cup, all on dirt. The seven-year-old has only ever raced on turf.
The prospect of Hong Kong’s Horse of the Year travelling to the Middle East was first mooted back in early July when owner Peter Lau said in an interview with Idol Horse, “We are thinking about some opportunities in maybe Dubai or Saudi Arabia,” and outlined his ambition to see his horse take Golden Sixty’s place as the world’s all-time highest money earner.
The G1 Maktoum Challenge Round 1 at Meydan is on January 24 and the Romantic Warrior camp is giving serious consideration to the possibility of an early departure for Dubai to acclimatise, perhaps as soon as mid-December, shortly after the Danny Shum-trained gelding’s attempt to seal a history-making third win in the G1 Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin on December 8.
Such an early arrival in the Arabian peninsula for a three-race campaign that could take in the Saudi Cup on February 22 and climax with the Dubai World Cup on April 5, would echo the tradition of Dubai Racing Carnival campaigns that proved so successful in the past for trainers like South Africa’s Mike de Kock, who would ship in horses to race there through a full three months.
Shum’s fellow Hong Kong handler Michael Chang enjoyed success with Rich Tapestry through a two-race Meydan campaign in March 2014, and then a three-race programme there from early February to late March 2016, nailing a Group 3 win each time. Also in 2016, another Hong Kong handler, Caspar Fownes, took Gun Pit to Meydan for a two-race assault that saw him place second in the G1 Maktoum Challenge Round 3 and then last of 12 in the G1 Dubai World Cup.
Romantic Warrior’s sojourn could stretch to 16 weeks. During that time of absence, the Hong Kong programme would roll through the G1 Stewards’ Cup in January and February’s G1 Hong Kong Gold Cup, offering a combined winner’s haul of HK$26 million (US$3.3 million).
But the money on offer in Dubai and Saudi is huge: the Maktoum Challenge carries a total purse of US$1 million, but the US$20 million Saudi Cup, the world’s richest race, pays out US$10 million to the victor and US$1 million just for finishing fifth, and the US$12 million Dubai World Cup has a first-place prize of US$7 million.
Should Romantic Warrior win both the Maktoum Challenge Round 1 and the Dubai World Cup he would also pick up a US$1.2 million bonus.
Romantic Warrior has so far earned HK$154,922,706 (US$19,910,184), which is HK$12.2 million less than the retired Golden Sixty accrued in his stellar career.
A win for Romantic Warrior in the HK$40 million (US$5.1 million) Hong Kong Cup, with its first-place purse of HK$22.4 million (US$2.86 million), would take him beyond Golden Sixty’s total and any success on his travels would lift his own tally well clear of the field ∎
