Romance could be in the air

The highly talented Romantic Warrior, bred by Corduff Stud and Tim Rooney, has taken himself to the top in Hong Kong and the son of Acclamation could have an international campaign ahead, writes Jeremy Green

Photos courtesy of the Hong Kong Jockey Club

THE GREAT UNPREDICTABILITY of racing extends to how the equine stars of the sport can surface anywhere, unannounced, at any time.

Two summers ago, Baaeed popped up unheralded at odds of 6-1 to land a Leicester maiden and spark a sequence that made him the best horse seen on the Turf since Frankel. Similarly, a few weeks shy of Christmas 2016, Enable prompted the trade press to boldly predict “she looks capable of going onto better things” after she easily collected first time out at Newcastle.

Now let’s export these examples of initial obscurity to the Far East and Hong Kong. Happy Valley is a superb place to go racing, but few have ever described it as a haven of champions. Hong Kong’s best horses rarely, if ever, venture beyond the confines of Sha Tin because that’s where all the best races are run.

Quick disclosure here: this correspondent worked for the Hong Kong Jockey Club for many years, and keeping close tabs on the sport there remains relevant. As such, I remember the debut made by its latest megastar Romantic Warrior because it stood out so much.

It was during one lunchtime in October 2021 when I was tuned into the racing at Happy Valley from home in Ireland. Here was this Irish-bred newcomer who, despite being drawn in the widest gate of 12 over the tight 6f track, was starting a very strong favourite – an unusual occurrence in itself.

Why was he so short in the betting? A brief glance at his two barrier trials showed he had won both with some ease. Still, showing up nicely in trials does not always translate when real race pressure is applied.

The passage of the race for him did not bode well – he was caught wide and without cover at halfway, a position very few manage to win from in Hong Kong at any time, never mind on debut. But win he did and in some style. Into the tracker went this very promising type Romantic Warrior.

“Going to win more races,” the accompanying note boldly predicted.

But to land the local holy grail, the Hong Kong Derby, just five months later? Then to be ranked joint-eighth on a mark of 124 in the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings after winning the Hong Kong Cup last December? Nobody, but nobody, could have foreseen that.

Because, to repeat, horses like that just do not graduate from the middle-to-lower ranks at Happy Valley. Or at least that used to be the case. So where did it all start?

Romantic Warrior was foaled in March 2018 at Corduff Stud near Prosperous in County Kildare for breeders James Egan and Tim Rooney. Egan had a breeding right in Rathbarry Stud-based stallion Acclamation and used him on Folk Melody, a Godolphin mare the farm had acquired at the Goffs Breeding Stock Sale just months earlier for €82,000.

Her dam, Folk Dance, ranked the Grade 1 EP Taylor in Canada as her crowning achievement on the track.

“It might sound easy to say this now, but he really was a standout from the get-go. There was always something special about him,” recalls Henrietta Egan, wife of James Egan’s son David when speaking to me on behalf of the breeders.

“When it came to the sales, we were so busy with so many people wanting to see him and vet him.”

Mick Kinane was one of those inquiring visitors. The 13-time champion jockey of Ireland had just been recruited by the HKJC to source youngsters from the northern hemisphere for resale at the Hong Kong International Sale as broken and breezing three-year-olds.

Celebrated as much in Hong Kong as his homeland after 170 wins – all the major races included, of course – in winter stints and flying visits to a place he still describes as “my second home” over a period of around 20 years, Kinane knew exactly what type of horses he wanted and pretty soon he found the exemplar.

“The brief was to buy mile to 1m2f horses. You are trying to find that balance of speed and stamina, but everyone is looking for that. When I first saw Romantic Warrior at Newmarket, he was that striking that I sent him to be vetted straight away,” recalls Kinane. “He was just a lovely individual. He was very athletic, very correct, he had a lovely head. I had my mind made up, I wanted him.

“If you were to have an idea of what the perfect model of a racehorse should look like, it would be something like him.”

Identifying the right horse was only part of the battle. Securing him would not be straightforward as Kinane knew he would face strong competition, not least from Angus Gold representing Shadwell. Even an element of subterfuge was required to sign the sales chit at 300,000gns.

“We wouldn’t have got him if it was a bidding match with Angus, especially if he had the late Sheikh Hamdan on the phone. I got my daughter Aisling to bid in a sort of a disguise, to give the opposition the run-around, while I was hidden out of sight. He was knocked down to the HKJC, but we were lucky,” reflects Kinane.

A new system of pre-training for Hong Kong came with Kinane’s accession to the role. The latest acquisitions were sent into training with Brian Meehan at Manton in Wiltshire in the belief that the horses needed to be better prepped to deal with the rigours of Hong Kong racing and its surrounding environment.

Towards the end of his time in England, Romantic Warrior shone in a racecourse gallop at Kempton, subsequently won a barrier trial at Lingfield, and then duly shipped eastwards to the Hong Kong International Sale at Sha Tin held at the end of June 2021.

This is where proud owner Peter Lau takes up the story.

“I found Romantic Warrior because of a series of right decisions that were taken. At the time, I already had a PP [private purchase] permit to import a horse with form.

But I was aware the International Sale horses were coming in under a different regime, so I asked for the permit to be changed so I could bid,” he says.

Above: owner Peter Lau signing for his purchase

Lau is the CEO and founder of Japan Home Centre, an international house ware retailer.

He had been an owner in Hong Kong with a couple of horses before he struck up a rapport with Shum.

“I had three horses with Danny before, they had all won. It was important to stay with him.

“When it came to the sale, I had my eye on another horse at first, but Danny kept drawing my attention to Romantic Warrior. He said he was the only horse in the sale that he wanted, how he loved his attitude, temperament and his movement.

"You need to trust your trainer when it comes to the finer details of these assessments.

“It must be like to trying to identify Ronaldo as a star of the future as a ten-year-old!

“It seemed a lot of money at the time, but I paid HK$4.8 million [around £500,000], he was the second highest lot of that sale. I can’t believe how well it has worked out. I am honoured to own such a wonderful horse.”

THE PINNACLE to date arrived last December when Romantic Warrior emulated another stellar Irishbred, Hong Kong import Designs On Rome when he added the Hong Kong Cup to the Derby and QEII Cup won earlier that year.

It was the way he did it, though, thrashing a solid field, featuring five Japanese Group 1 performers, in one of the fastest-ever times recorded at Sha Tin for the 1m2f distance.

Kinane was on hand to witness the demolition and says with understandable pride: “It was my best day in racing out of the saddle. You always hope one of them will become a star, but racing is rarely like that. I was thrilled to be there to see him win such a big race and win it so well. It was a great moment.”

Jockey James McDonald, flown in from Australia to take the mount, was just as effusive in the aftermath. “I promise you, that was really as good as it looked,” he enthused.

He was perfect from start to finish and he’s right up there with any of the other really good ones I’ve ridden. He’s got everything a good horse needs and he’s got it in spades

"He’s so versatile, he’s very economical, he doesn’t spend a penny in the run and the other thing is that he’s got a good turn-of-foot off any kind of tempo.”

At the time of writing, in the wake of a second place to Golden Sixty in the Group 1 Stewards Cup over a mile – a race billed as Hong Kong’s “Race of the Decade” – at the end of January, Romantic Warrior had over £6 million in earnings, and racked up nine wins from 11 starts.

Owner Lau is to be commended for having a crack at the Hong Kong Triple Crown, and only the most successful horse in Hong Kong racing history could deny him glory in that first leg. Romantic Warrior will be long odds-on to win the Gold Cup over 1m2f in late February and following that the QEII Cup over the same trip against international opposition in April.

There are plans are for him to stretch out to 1m4f in the Champions & Chater Cup at the end of May. Depending on how he goes in the latter event, Lau said he could target the Japan Cup towards the end of the year.

International travel is certainly on the agenda next season and the Tenno Sho (Autumn) over 1m2f in Tokyo could figure if the 1m4f does stretch his stamina.

Trainer Shum knows what it takes to compete internationally having won the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2012 with Little Bridge. He also has experience of successful raids to Japan when assistant to former champion trainer Ivan Allan, who prepared Indigenous to finish second in the 1999 Japan Cup and Fairy King Prawn to win the Yasuda Kinen a year later, outcomes that were the first to put Hong Kong on the map in the international sense it craved.

Back in Kildare, meanwhile, Corduff Stud is preparing to welcome a half-sibling by New Bay and has a yearling colt out of Folk Melody and by Showcasing on the ground. The mare, who is still only 12, is scheduled to visit Night Of Thunder at Kildangan Stud.

The attention on those youngsters will be far greater owing to their older half-brother’s exploits in Hong Kong.

“Early in his career somebody said to me that he is a nice horse but he’s probably only a Happy Valley horse,” Peter Lau laughs, adding: “He turned out a little better than that!”

Ex-jockey Kinane, below, says watching Romantic Warrior win the Hong Kong Cup was the best day he has had at the races since he retired from race riding