ROMANTIC WARRIOR IS THE REAL DEAL

By Graham Potter and Darren Winningham | Friday, December 6, 2024

James McDonald has called Romantic Warrior ‘the perfect racehorse’ and has set the target of helping the Danny Shum trained gelding become ‘the best horse ever to have graced the Sha Tin turf’ … and, in all likelihood, the running of the Longines Hong Kong Cup on Sunday will be just another progressive step towards achieving that ultimate goal.

Romantic Warrior will create history with a win on Sunday as it would be his third successive win in the Hong Kong Cup … but it is the form that he brings into the race that is quite staggering.

Romantic Warrior is on a rare winning sequence, having won all of his last six starts, five of them in Group 1 races contested in three different countries … Australia, Japan and, of course, Hong Kong.

That sequence started with a win in the 2023 Cox Plate, in which Romantic Warrior got up by a nose, and therein lies another important part to the Romantic Warrior success story.

Not only is he blessed with outstanding talent, he also has an amazing will to win, as evidenced by the fact that the first four of the Group 1 wins in this sequence came by a winning margin of no more than a neck. It was only in Japan that Romantic Warrior pushed the winning margin out to half-a-length.

These statistics also reveal the formidable, focussed and unshakeable bond / working relationship … … between horse and rider … getting the best out of each other, not to mention their fruitful association!

McDonald has ridden Romantic Warrior on ten occasions … for an incredible nine wins.
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Whatever happens on Sunday, future plans have already been set for Romantic Warrior.

HRO’s Darren Winningham, who is on assignment in Hong Kong, was on hand to get that information first-hand from Romantic Warrior’s owner Peter Lau.

“He’ll be going to Dubai … but Saudi Arabia before that,” confirmed Lau.

“He’s had his injection for the trip and three days after the injection he galloped and he was relaxed. It’s been no problem at all,” Lau told Winno.

But that’s for another time.

Perhaps Lau’s most pertinent comment in his conversation with Winno came back to Romantic Warrior’s well-being leading into Sunday’s race.

“After his last gallop, James McDonald told me he (Romantic Warrior) is in the best form ever … much better than the same time last year, so we were happy to hear that,” Lau told Winno.

That will hardly be music to the ears of the opposition though, but it does add to the already great sense of anticipation that is always in play when a champion goes out onto the track.

It will be a great occasion.

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