Having confirmed his status as world #1 and in the process become the world’s leading prize-money earner of all time, Romantic Warrior is set to bid for the world’s richest race – on dirt in the Saudi Cup.
Romantic Warrior (stays at #1, +124pt) confirmed his status at the head of Thoroughbred Racing Commentary’s exclusive Global Rankings with a consummate performance to complete a historic hat-trick in the Hong Kong Cup at Sha Tin on Sunday [Dec 8].
With a purse of HK$40m ($5.15m/£4.02m), this is the region’s richest race – and victory meant the formidable six-year-old surpassed his compatriot in the global prize-money stakes with a career total of HK$177m ($22.767m/£17.81). Golden Sixty’s final total was HK$167m ($21.48m/£16.8m).
With jockey James McDonald (stays at #2, +31pt) standing up in saddle and looking around in disdain at his rivals, Romantic Warrior scored by a length and a half over Liberty Island, winner of the fillies’ Triple Crown in Japan last year. In third place in an international field was Tastiera, who won last year’s Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby).
“That was unbelievable, I’m so proud of this horse,” said McDonald. “He’s just been remarkable.
“The Japanese put it to him but with no luck,” he went on. “He’s the best – forget the rest, he’s the best. He’s been flying and anyone could ride him because he’s that easy but I’m the lucky one.
“He’s the horse of a lifetime. This was our moment to create history and it felt like I was lining up for the winning kick for the All Blacks. It was a ‘pinch-me’ moment.”
With top-level victories abroad on major races in Australia and Japan, Romantic Warrior’s career record bears the closest scrutiny – and he is not done yet, as connections are now eyeing the challenge of racing on dirt in the Saudi Cup and then the Dubai World Cup.
“He’s the best, but I have to take another bigger challenge to go to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, just because I haven’t been to Dubai for 25 years,” said trainer Danny Shum (#17 from #24, +83pt).
“We are experimenting with dirt but I’ve tried him in an all-weather trial with a pacifier and he was quite good.”
Carrying the colours of owner Peter Lau, Romantic Warrior is a gelded son of former leading Irish-based sire Acclamation, who died last week.
He has now won 17 of his 22 career starts. Nine of his victories have come at G1 level – as well as his Hong Kong Cup hat-trick, he has won the last three editions of the QEII Cup, last year’s Cox Plate in Australia and the Yasuda Kinen in Japan in June. For good measure, he won two legs of the HK Classic series for four-year-olds in 2021, including the HK Derby, which we treat as a G1 for rankings purposes (though it is denied such official recognition as a restricted race). He has now spent a total of 21 weeks as world #1 racehorse.
“When you look at the sporting performances, Romantic Warrior is the best 2000-metre horse in the world,” said Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, the Hong Kong Jockey Club chief executive.
“It was an absolutely dominant performance, he showed that he is absolutely world-class and to win this race for the third time is an incredible effort.”
With 69,916 racegoers at Sha Tin, Engelbrecht-Bresges lauded the Longines-sponsored HKIR as“one of the best days of racing” in Hong Kong racing history.
HK Sprint: Ka Ying Rising … and rising again
The other three HKIR winners also made the TRC rankings Top 20, led by Ka Ying Rising (#4 from #14, +135pt), who overcame a double-figure barrier in a 14-runner field to confirm his status as the regions’s newest superstar with his first G1 win in the HK Sprint.
Although the four-year-old was by no means as spectacular as three weeks previously when he smashed the six-furlong track record at Sha Tin in G2 company, he was always in control before a half-length victory over Helios Express.
Sent off a 1-10 favourite, Ka Ying Rising has now won eight races in a row and his career record stands at nine wins and two seconds from 11 starts.
“He wasn’t at his best today and is better than this and still got the job done,” said six-time HK champion jockey Zac Purton (#8 from #11, +36pt).
“Something lunged at the gate just before he went and it took his mind off it and he turned his head, so he was a little bit slow to step.
“Then Victor The Winner just bored my neck the whole way and he never quite relaxed the way he has. He was working the whole way and never had time to relax.”
HK Mile: Home comforts for Voyage Bubble
Voyage Bubble (#15 from #35, +163pt) was another domestic winner – and another winner for James McDonald – at the meeting that bills itself as the ‘turf world championships’.
Having shaken off the memories of a couple of unsuccessful overseas forays, the Ricky Yiu-trained six-year-old confirmed his status as Hong Kong’s premier miler with a straightforward victory over a cosmopolitan field in the HK Mile.
“He’s a great horse in his own right,” said McDonald. “He felt excellent going to the gates today – he was really on the job. He just gives his all. He has a very big heart and he’s very uncomplicated.”
HK Vase: Murphy knows best for Giavellotto
The HK Vase was the only one of the four HKIR contests to go overseas as Giavellotto (#16 from #62, +196pt) produced an irresistible surge under Oisin Murphy (#32 from #23pt), to end a 12-year drought at the meeting for Britain.
“It was all very comfortable until I got to the turn, then I had to wait and of course then you’re worried that the race is going to get away from you,” said Murphy.
“But he showed an incredible kick to get going. He was always going to win from a furlong out so I was really able to soak it up.”
HItherto regarded largely as a stayer, Giavellotto was a first top-level win for trainer Newmarket-based trainerMarco Botti (#112 from #169, +45pt) since Capla Temptress scored in Canada in 2017.
“Credit to Oisin because first thing after the Irish St Leger, he mentioned this race and he was adamant that we should come here,” said Botti. “We followed Oisin’s advice and it worked out well.
“Giavellotto was fresh coming into the race and it was only his sixth race of the year. We knew that, if he handled a drop back to a mile and a half on a sharper track than Newmarket – where he won in the summer – we had a chance.”
• View the latest TRC Global Rankings for horses / jockeys / trainers / sires
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• Unlike traditional methods of racehorse rankings, TRC Global Rankings are a measure of an individual’s level of achievement over a rolling three-year period, providing a principled hierarchy of the leading horses, jockeys, trainers, owners and sires using statistical learning techniques. Racehorse rankings can be compared to similar exercises in other sports, like the golf’s world rankings or the ATP rankings in tennis.
They are formulated from the last three years of races we consider Group or Graded class all over the world and update automatically each week according to the quality of a horse’s performances and their recency, taking into account how races work out.
