Golden Sixty was the horse of the day but the Hong Kong Cup was the race of the day, local hero Romantic Warrior edging Luxembourg by a nose in the Group 1 fixture Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse. The Japanese 7-year-old Hishi Iguazu, second in the 2021 Cup, also was part of a three-horse photo finish, falling a neck short of the top two. Romantic Warrior won the $4.61 million Cup for the second year in a row, while the Aidan O’Brien-trained, Ryan Moore-ridden Luxembourg nearly became the 2,000-meter race’s first European winner since Snow Fairy in 2010. This victory looked nothing like Romantic Warrior’s stroll through the park in the 2022 Cup, which he dominated by more than four lengths. Sunday, he was back in action only 43 days after winning the Group 1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse in Australia, where Romantic Warrior three weeks prior had run a Cox Plate prep race at Flemington, his first start following an extended vacation. The Cox Plate proved a tough test, Romantic Warrior winning by a nose, and after two days, he boarded a plane for the nine-hour flight back to Hong Kong. :: Hong Kong: Free PPs, picks, analysis, replays, and live streaming “To come back from a Cox Plate, I thought was going to be a ginormous task,” said James McDonald, who rode Romantic Warrior for trainer Clifford Shum. Ryan Moore on Luxembourg, a fresh horse racing for the first time since September, apparently thought so, too. Romantic Warrior was getting a perfect stalking trip racing fourth with cover, two paths off the rail, before Moore, his mount trailing Romantic Warrior, made an early move partway around the far forcing McDonald to abandon his patient approach and swing Romantic Warrior into the fray. Romantic Warrior took the lead with about 400 meters left to race and went clear by about a length, Luxembourg unable to keep pace, but Romantic Warrior began flagging with 200 meters remaining. The pack began closing on him, a resurgent Luxembourg going best of them but falling just short. Romantic Warrior takes a backseat in Hong Kong only to Golden Sixty; those two and Beauty Generation are the three Hong Kong horses to have surpassed 100 million Hong Kong dollars ($12.8 million) in earnings, and Romantic Warrior, an Irish-bred son of Acclamation and Folk Melody, by Street Cry, won his fifth Group 1. McDonald called him “the toughest racehorse I’ve ever sat on” -- a warrior indeed. Junko last to first in Vase Junko’s second junket outside Europe went much better than his first. Sixth in the Dubai Turf this past March, 4-year-old Junko rallied from last of eight behind a slow pace to win the Group 1, $3.07 million Hong Kong Vase by one length over the Japanese horse Zeffiro. Favored Warm Heart, coming out of a second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, got what looked like an ideal trip sitting second behind a walking pace set by longshot La City Blanche, but jockey after jockey said the front end was no place to be Sunday at Sha Tin. Junko raced from last under Maxime Guyon because he blew the start of the 2,400-meter Vase. Making steady progress around the second of two turns, Junko rallied widest and came home a definitive winner. Andre Fabre, who won this race in 2014 with Flintshire, trains Junko for his breeders, Alain and Gerard Wertheimer. Junko, who won the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Bayern on Nov. 5, is a son of Intello and Lady Zuzu, by Dynaformer. The winning time of 2:30.12 was the slowest in Vase history. Lucky all good in Sprint Sixth as the favorite in the 2022 Hong Kong Sprint, Lucky Sweynesse came through as the chalk Sunday with a three-quarters-length victory in the Group 1, $3.3 million Sprint. Hong Kong-based longshot Lucky With You finished second and Wellington completed a local sweep, finishing third. Highfield Princess and Aesop’s Fables, the two European horses, finished sixth and 10th, respectively. Lucky Sweynesse ended his 2022-23 season with six straight wins, three in Group 1s, and came into his 2023-24 campaign easily rated Hong Kong’s best sprinter. The 5-year-old gelding ran well below form losing his first two starts this fall but came into the Sprint off a nose victory in the Group 3 Jockey Club Sprint, a performance that jockey Zax Purton said suggested Lucky Sweynesse had gotten back on track. And while he probably didn’t perform at the peak of his powers Sunday, Lucky Sweynesse was good enough for a modest renewal of Hong Kong’s most important sprint contest. Manfred Mann trains Lucky Sweynesse, a New Zealand-bred with a pedigree obscure to most Americans: by Sweynesse out of Madonna Mia, by Red Clubs. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.