Shum’s Romantic Warrior Teamwork Is Cementing A Legacy
The team is the bedrock for Romantic Warrior’s Saudi Cup journey and is enabling trainer Danny Shum to pass on his knowledge of travelling horses, while representing his city on the world stage.
DANNY SHUM is starting to sound Aidan O’Brien-like. Ireland’s champion trainer is well-known for reeling off the several names of his staff involved in the process of achieving any major win, sometimes stopping barely short of the stable cat, and Shum’s mantra regarding his brilliant turf star Romantic Warrior’s latest odyssey is similarly hooked around a ‘team’ ethos.
Neither man should be faulted for acknowledging publicly their team’s sterling work: a trainer cannot produce the desired results if he does not have the support or the respect of good staff. In Shum’s case, the names of Henry Chan, Gary Lau, Andy Luk, Marcus Chung, Gary Poon, Tom Simpson and James McDonald have fallen often from his lips in the lead-up to Romantic Warrior’s daring Saudi Cup challenge. And let’s not forget the much-travelled lead horse, Romantic Charm.
The core of that team has been away from Hong Kong, keeping the champ fit and happy in Dubai and now Saudi Arabia, since the middle of December.
“I’d like to thank all my stable team,” Shum said during a Thursday morning press conference at King Abdulaziz Racecourse on Riyadh’s northern outskirts, and proceeded to again remind everyone of their names.
They, along with Shum and his wife Kristy, are the Romantic Warrior team and each is valued and important to the cause that so far this year has yielded an offshore win in the G1 Jebel Hatta in Dubai and could yet bring lucrative rewards in Riyadh, again at Meydan, and perhaps on Japan’s shores in June. They have also been to and picked up major wins in Australia and Japan in the last 16 months when team member Ben So was on the ground, too.
The Saudi Cup barrier draw on Wednesday night saw another member brought into the team fold. McDonald’s wife Katelyn Mallyon was tasked with drawing the gate position for Romantic Warrior’s US$20 million test on Saturday, his first and likely only attempt at a dirt track feature. She drew barrier three of 14 and the Shum team, seated around a table front left of the stage, beamed with satisfaction; Danny and Kristy rose to embrace her warmly when she returned to the group. But before she left the stage, she told of her family’s connection to Romantic Warrior.
“We’ve got two young girls at home who adore him, like we do, and they’ll be cheering on from Australia,” she said.
Shum knows what it’s like to be involved in something big, something groundbreaking that captures the public imagination. He was part of trainer Ivan Allan’s team that took horses to race in major races outside of Hong Kong in those pioneering days around the turn-of-the-century of Fairy King Prawn, Indigenous and Oriental Express, travelling overseas to compete when Hong Kong horses were new to the international Group 1 arena.
Fairy King Prawn won the G1 Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo in 2000, but his defeat when second to Jim And Tonic in the 2001 G1 Dubai Duty Free in Dubai was a tough one. Shum was key to those raids, which inspired him and shaped his outlook: he wants the same for his team; he believes it is important for their personal career development and important for the continuing advancement of the sport in Hong Kong for that legacy to continue.
“It’s very important for Hong Kong that these guys, the assistant trainers, the mafoos, the farriers, that they get this kind of experience and knowledge,” he told Idol Horse.
“What we are doing here, this is for the next generation as well, and so that other people in Hong Kong will see, they will talk, they will want to have this experience to come to Saudi or to Japan or Dubai or Australia. So, my team, later, then they will go out and they will have that knowledge inside of them, so hopefully that experience will be passed on.”
Shum, 64, is a ‘hands-on’ trainer, deeply involved in observing and overseeing the details that go into the care and conditioning of the athletes under his watch: this is evident in his scouting visits to Dubai and Saudi before he committed Romantic Warrior, including a swift trip to Riyadh to not only check facilities but also to walk the dirt track that has prompted so much ‘will he or won’t he handle it?’ speculation and discussion. But Shum also has confidence in his staff, and in the communication system he has in place when the stable’s star commodity is away from home.
“They all understand what we’re doing,” he said. “They take pictures, they take videos of the horse, they trot up; they tell how much feed, what’s the horse’s temperature, all these things, we all know about this.
“All the information is sent to me and to his owner Peter, and to James McDonald as well, we collect it together and we work as a team. We do a call together, but mostly we’ll send messages each day about how he worked this morning, how he felt this morning, things like this. That communication from my staff is very important, especially when I am not here.”
Among the team is Romantic Warrior’s work rider Gary Lau. His feedback from the saddle is vital to Shum and his skill with his hands on reins was evident at trackwork four days out from the big race when the world’s all-time high prizemoney earner was lit up by two of his Japanese opponents, Wilson Tesoro and Ushba Tesoro, breezing past on his inside during a steady canter towards the winning the post.
Romantic Warrior, a natural competitor, ignited and tried to go with them, but Lau was alive to the threat and took him to the outside rail, keeping a strong hold on a tight rein to prevent an unwanted burst of energy.
“The Japanese horses came past and he wanted to go, so I pulled out from behind the lead horse a little bit to get away from his heels, and when I did that, he wanted to go because sometimes when I ride him, I will pull out and let him go, so he thought that was the signal. When the Japanese horse went past, Romantic Warrior wanted to race,” Lau told Idol Horse.
Lau, 54, has been with the Hong Kong Jockey Club for more than 30 years. He gained a love for the sport through his mother, who “watched the races and liked to gamble a little bit.” He was apprenticed to Alex Wong and rode for a couple of years, bagging one winner, before changing direction and taking on work rider duties. He has worked for John Moore, David Hall, and for the past five years, Shum.
“Romantic Warrior is easy to ride,” Lau continued. “He’s a gentleman, he’s quiet and easy to control. When he was young, he was a little bit cheeky but now he’s real quiet. At the same time, he can be a bit alert, but he never does something wrong, he just might be alert and (on edge) sometimes.”
The big question being asked around Riyadh and beyond is whether Romantic Warrior will handle the dirt. The general talk is that the deep, soft, Riyadh dirt runs slower than the dirt tracks at Meydan or in North America, and that turf horses fare well. That feedback and past results, combined with Shum’s own judgement, having walked the track, mean that the trainer is proceeding with a dose of positivity and a sprinkle of faith.
“I’m pretty confident he can handle it, but I don’t know,” Shum said.
Lau’s feedback is similarly positive yet guarded: “The Hong Kong dirt he trains on is not like this, it’s soft here, but riding him here, there’s nothing different, he feels the same when I ride him.”
Shum’s memories of the tough exertion Fairy King Prawn went through in the Dubai Duty Free after training on the Dubai dirt all those years ago has him sticking to his line that this dirt track adventure will be a one-time-only gig for Romantic Warrior.
“Just one run on dirt,” he said, “because it will be too hard for him to run a second time, too tough on him. There’s also the bonus if he wins the Dubai Turf because he won the Jebel Hatta, it’s 10 percent, close to HK$4 million, so why not?”
One of Shum’s underlying aims in all of this – beyond the Saudi Cup’s US$10 million winners’ cheque and satisfying owner Peter Lau’s sporting inclination – is to continue showing the world what Hong Kong can do, enhancing the legacy of Hong Kong-based trainers trailblazing offshore all those years ago, like Allan, David Hill, David Oughton and Ricky Yiu.
He wants the buzz around Romantic Warrior’s overseas achievements to extend to the city’s owners and the fans, furthering their understanding of the sport internationally by connecting with the stories. That includes knowing the horse’s character and traits, and recognising the people that make up the team.
“I feel it’s very important,” Shum said as he walked along in front of the grandstands after the Thursday media conference. “I just opened the first step, going to the Saudi Cup for the first time, and I’m hoping other trainers and owners will come. If we succeed, I’ll be happy, and if we don’t make it, I think other trainers and owners will come and try to make it happen, because I stepped out and tried to do it.
“When you have a horse like Romantic Warrior and his owner, Mr. Peter Lau, you have different stories to tell and people get more excited. This gives the people more topics to enjoy, so the other owners and trainers, they will want to go anywhere in the world and win races for Hong Kong.
“It’s very important for the fans to have these stories and experience them happening, and it even helps the Hong Kong Jockey Club because the more people that know Hong Kong racing, the better for them and Hong Kong.”
Romantic Warrior’s story has sparked plenty of interest among the international horsemen that have arrived in Riyadh to take him on. Even Kenny McPeek, the storied U.S. handler responsible for Saudi Cup rival Rattle N Roll, was drawn to talk about the Hong Kong champion.
“Romantic Warrior is a unique horse,” McPeek said. “I’ve got a bit of a background of looking at horses at auction, and how they’re made, and what type of surfaces they should like. Him being a son of Acclamation with Royal Applause in the top line would somewhat be inclined to being a grass horse, so how he transitions over is going to be very interesting. And I think that’s the cool thing about racing horses, I think a good horse can run over mostly any surface, it’s such an inexact science.”
Shum and the team are hoping their good horse goes on any surface and that the odyssey will continue on to Dubai at the beginning of April with Romantic Warrior coming through his dirt test healthy and well. That’s the real priority for an all-time great champion, a 10-time Group 1 winner who in reality owes nobody anything more.
“We will look after Romantic Warrior,” Shum said. “The first priority is that Romantic Warrior is a healthy horse.”
But so long as he is, the champ and his team have a job to do, and a legacy of international achievement and know-how to pass on to the rising generation of Hong Kong’s horsemen and its fans.
“I will do my best, we will all do our best,” Shum added. “And if more people know Hong Kong racing, it will be better, it will make Hong Kong even better.” ∎
