Hong Kong Cup: Romantic Warrior poised for four-peat

Does it seem like just yesterday that the Hong Kong superstar Romantic Warrior burst upon the scene? Well, no, it does not.

Romantic Warrior won his first five starts and wound up seven for eight his first Hong Kong season. That was way back in 2021-22, but 7-year-old Romantic Warrior, racing for the first time in almost eight months, and for the first time since a screw was surgically implanted into his left-front fetlock, looked as good as ever Nov. 23 in the Jockey Club Cup. And if he proves as good as ever, Romantic Warrior on Sunday – late Saturday night in North America – will win the Group 1, $5.1 million Hong Kong Cup for the fourth year in a row.

Three of Romantic Warrior’s wins in the Cup came definitively, but in 2023 he scored by a nose over the Aidan O’Brien-trained Luxembourg. Joseph O’Brien, his son, trains Galen, the Ireland-based horse in this year’s Hong Kong Cup who would require massive improvement to contend with an in-form Romantic Warrior. The seven-runner Hong Kong Cup, contested over 2,000 meters, includes two local horses, the French mare Quisiana, and two Japan-based horses, Bellagio Opera and Rousham Park.

Rousham Park nearly won the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Turf but since has turned in four dismal showings. Bellagio Opera in April won the Group 1 Osaka Hai over 2,000 meters but hasn’t raced since a good second of 17 in the 2,200-meter Takarazuka Kinen last June, and he starts for the first time outside Japan.

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Five-year-old Quisiana has run only 10 times, but after two abbreviated campaigns makes her sixth start this year. She excels over 2,000 meters, winning the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet in her most recent start at the trip, and gets four pounds from her male rivals. She would need more than that to handle Romantic Warrior, among the truly great horses of recent vintage.

Trained by Danny Shum and the regular mount of James McDonald, Romantic Warrior’s record stands at 26-19-5-0, and he has earned roughly $28 million. Let that sink in for a moment.

Post 13 proved his undoing when Romantic Warrior finished fourth four winters ago in the Hong Kong Classic Cup. In autumn of 2023, he traveled to Australia and was fourth in the Turnbull Stakes before winning the Cox Plate there. Only in those two starts was the gelding worse than second.

Two of his second-place finishes came behind the great Hong Kong horse Golden Sixty, and a third in the best race of 2025, the Saudi Cup, where Romantic Warrior, making the only dirt start of his career, lost by a neck to Forever Young, the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner six weeks ago.

That race sapped both horses. Forever Young lost the Dubai World Cup at a short price, while Romantic Warrior ran second by a nose in the Dubai Turf.

Romantic Warrior never went lame last spring, and a long period of rest could have healed his injured fetlock, but connections opted instead for surgery, imbuing the Jockey Club Cup with pre-race drama. None came in the race itself. Romantic Warrior traveled like a winner from the start. McDonald never cocked his stick, hands and heels to a perfect prep victory. It would take an all-time great to win the Hong Kong Cup four times. Romantic Warrior is one.

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