Romantic Warrior the headline act the Hong Kong International Sale needed
Rolston delighted Sha Tin banner horse conquers the Cox Plate in a show of true sportsmanship
Romantic Warrior (Acclamation) successfully carried the weight of Hong Kong expectation in Saturday’s stirring Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) victory, the triumph reward for trainer Danny Shum’s bold vision to travel his stable star to Australia.
For expatriate Kiwi Danny Rolston, Romantic Warrior’s win at Moonee Valley in one of Australasia’s most prestigious races was also vindication of the Jockey Club’s overhaul of its Hong Kong International Sale and the way it sourced yearlings to offer to its cohort of owners.
Appointed by the Jockey Club as the executive manager of the Hong Kong International Sale and owner advisory services in mid-2022 after a long career with New Zealand Bloodstock, Rolston was charged with continuing to improve the quality of horses imported to Hong Kong.
His relocation came more than three years after Boomer Bloodstock’s Craig Rounsefell and retired champion Irish jockey Mick Kinane were asked by the Jockey Club to buy horses on its behalf in the southern and northern hemisphere respectively.
And Romantic Warrior is the flag bearer for turning around the fortunes of the Hong Kong International Sale, selling for HK$4.8 million to his owner Peter Lau at the 2021 sale, two years after Kinane picked him out for 300,000gns at the 2019 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.
Rolston yesterday marvelled at the four-time Group 1 winner’s Cox Plate feat and praised Shum and Lau for being prepared to leave the relative security of Hong Kong and take on all-comers at Moonee Valley in the weight-for-age championship.
“Everyone’s been talking about Romantic Warrior and I think the amount of money bet on him through World Pool is just a good reflection of how the racing public and the wider public have really been behind him,” Rolston said on his way to Happy Valley’s Sunday meeting.
“There’s been those few horses who have travelled over to Qatar and Korea and places like that, but I think a race like the Cox Plate, it is a race that gets so much more media coverage and so many more people know the race and know the carnival, so it has had a massive impact up here for us.”
Rolston lauded the ride of his fellow New Zealander James McDonald, believing that the champion jockey made three crucial decisions, all of which contributed to Romantic Warrior winning by a nose over Mr Brightside (Bullbars), instead of heading back to scale in defeat.
Alligator Blood (All Too Hard) ran third after hitting the front in the home straight.
“The horse can overrace leaving the straight the first time, he’s done that up here a number of times, and he jumped a quarter of a length clear of the field [but he eased and took cover],” he said.
“Then he let Alligator Blood slip a length on him and then I think the third time was when he got him out and put the stick on him before straightening to build his momentum.
“I think they were the three winning moves. If any of those didn’t go to plan, then he might have turned the nose margin around and finished second.”
More importantly for Rolston is that Romantic Warrior is the best-performed of 13 horses to so far win races out of the 2021 Hong Kong Sale and he is confident that the Jockey Club’s structures in place means graduate success from that year and from the 2022 and 2023 sales will continue.
He pointed to the fact that 2022 sale graduates Denfield (Deep Field), a Grenville Stud-bred, Inglis Premier graduate identified by Rounsefell, the Waikato Stud-bred-and-sold Romantic Laos (Pins) and the northern hemisphere-bred Nordic Dragon (Starspangledbanner) were all promising horses who had won multiple races for their owners.
“Romantic Warrior is just so important and [the result of] an effort we’ve made to turn the sale around and bring good horses over from wherever we can find them,” Rolston said.
“He’s proof in the pudding of what we’re trying to achieve, which is to bring racehorses that can win over a variety of distances and we want them to race on as older horses.
“They all won’t be as good as him, but he’s certainly been a great advert for us in what we’re trying to achieve.”
Romantic Warrior can add further weight to his already impressive race record – and that of the International Sale – at Hong Kong’s International meeting on December 10 where he is likely to attempt to defend his Hong Kong Cup (Gr 1, 2000m) crown.
Shum indicated after the Cox Plate that the gelding would return to Sha Tin as soon as possible, bypassing Saturday week’s Champions Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) at Flemington.
Winx (Street Cry), Sunline (Desert Sun), Northerly (Serheed), Makybe Diva (Desert King), So You Think (High Chaparral) and Anamoe (Street Boss) last year are among the champions to have won the Cox Plate since 2000.
Rolston is glad Hong Kong’s own Romantic Warrior, who finished fourth at Flemington in the Turnbull Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) on October 7 in his first run since May, is now on the honour roll alongside racing royalty.
“I think it is a massive show of sportsmanship by Mr Lau and Danny Shum, to be honest. I was at a function with Mr Lau about a month ago and the more I got to know him, the more evident it is that there’s no naivety about him. He absolutely just wanted to take his horse and compete in true sporting style,” Rolston said.
“I think they deserved to get that result because they are a really, really strong team and they wanted to take that horse to prove just how good he is, which he’s done.”