\u201cHe just looks better all the time. He\u2019s mentally getting better. It\u2019s hard to say that he\u2019s improving or that he\u2019s going to get better, but he\u2019s certainly enjoying what he\u2019s doing and handling it really well,\u201d Purton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good to see him win like that today without having to go to the bottom of him, so it\u2019s a nice confidence-boosting win as he comes back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never seen him look so good. We were hoping he was going to do that, and it\u2019s good for him to back up what we were thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cMid-race, Beauty Waves was probably just half a step too slow, I know we\u2019ve run nearly a track-record time, but he [Ka Ying Rising] was on his tippy toes behind him wanting to go quicker.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the beauty with this horse, the faster they go, the better he is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to the stage where I had to let him roll into it because otherwise it was going to be detrimental to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trainer David Hayes continues to be amazed by Ka Ying Rising and said Sunday\u2019s effort was one of the best he has seen from the son of Shamexpress.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the eye, I thought it was probably one of his best wins,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cThat was as easy as I\u2019ve seen him do it \u2013 maybe in this race last year, but I thought it was probably better than this one last year when he [Purton] did the kiss cam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, Romantic Warrior made a triumphant return to as he sauntered to an emphatic victory in the HK$5.35m Jockey Club Cup for jockey McDonald and trainer Danny Shum.<\/p>\n
Resuming after 232 days between races after surgery to his left fore fetlock, Romantic Warrior lifted his world-record earnings to HK$217.7m as the Hong Kong International Sale graduate became the first horse to win a third Hong Kong Jockey Club Cup, after victories in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so special. It takes the words out of my mouth, to be fair, it\u2019s an absolute privilege to ride him and every time he goes around, there\u2019s a huge smile on the face. He\u2019s really touching, that horse,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanny and his team just gloat over him, he\u2019s a special horse \u2013 one of a kind.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis training performance is incredible. To have him looking how he did, feeling how he did and performing how he did was a real testament to his training ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Romantic Warrior will next target a record-extending fourth consecutive HK$40m Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Cup at the December 14 blockbuster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to take a horse 232 days back to a Group 2 over 2000 [metres]. He\u2019s a superstar, he\u2019s got talent and is smart,\u201d Shum said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t look 7 years old, even when he turns 8, he will think he\u2019s still a baby.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will just keep him happy; he\u2019s fit at the moment. If you really want me to put a figure on it, I will say he was 85%. After this race, he will put on another 10 or 12 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to thank Hugh Bowman, of course, he trials the horse a lot and teaches the horse to relax. He also helps the team and the stable a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 additional reporting Hong Kong Jockey Club<\/p>\n
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald\u2019s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world\u2019s biggest horse racing carnivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe just looks better all the time. He\u2019s mentally getting better. It\u2019s hard to say that he\u2019s improving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[806,6326,3246,33400,39726,100954,20588,14568,16420,807,45499,2374,111,139,2551,69,1118,3512,1527,213,10809,6278,223,165,100955,379,80],"class_list":["post-151119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-as","tag-biggest","tag-both","tag-dominate","tag-domination","tag-equine","tag-hong","tag-horse","tag-human","tag-kiwis","tag-kong","tag-meeting","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-racing","tag-return","tag-sports","tag-sunday","tag-superstars","tag-the","tag-their","tag-warmed","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}