WHEN ROMANTIC WARRIOR NARROWLY OUTLASTED LOCAL STAR MR BRIGHTSIDE TO WIN THE 2023 LADBROKES COX PLATE, HE BECAME THE FIRST EVER HONG KONG TRAINED HORSE TO WIN OUR GREATEST WEIGHT FOR AGE RACE. ell, more history was made on Sunday 10 December at Sha Tin, when the star son of Acclamation was able to capture his second consecutive Hong Kong Cup and become the first horse to complete the Ladbrokes Cox Plate – Hong Kong Cup double. It was well documented that Romantic Warrior faced many obstacles when coming to Melbourne back in the Spring. Through quarantine he went off his feed, and it showed in his sub-par Australian debut when he could only manage 4th in the Turnbull Stakes at Flemington – clearly underdone. Given that, the training performance by his jovial trainer Danny Shum to win two of the world’s best 2000-metre races thereafter has been nothing short of remarkable. Like the Cox Plate, Romantic Warrior drew barrier 7 in the $7 million AUD Hong Kong Cup – strangely, the most successful barrier ins the 37 runnings of their biggest international race. As he so often does, champion jockey James McDonald found a beautiful position in running, perched just two lengths behind the leader Money Catcher, one off the fence. The locally trained danger Straight Arron locked away on his inside, with the equally rated UK Group 1 winner Luxembourg behind him, hard ridden. The Warrior trucked into the straight and took the lead as if a ROMANTIC WARRIOR COMPLETES HISTORIC DOUBLE
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