2023 Cox Plate hero and four-time Hong Kong Cup winner Romantic Warrior is set to stay in Hong Kong instead of heading to the Middle East in 2026.<\/p>\n
Danny Shum\u2019s globetrotting galloper will chase the Hong Kong Triple Crown next year: the G1 Steward\u2019s Cup over 1600m, the G1 Hong Kong Gold Cup over 2000m and the G1 Champions and Chater Cup over 2400m, instead of racing in Dubai and Saudi Arabia like he did in the early part of this year.<\/p>\n
There had been talk as recently as international week in Hong Kong that Romantic Warrior would tackle the Saudi Cup once again in a bid to turn the tables on Japanese dirt superstar Forever Young in the world\u2019s richest race, however, his main rival now will be Voyage Bubble, the dual Hong Kong Mile winner who created history by claiming the Triple Crown this year.<\/p>\n
When contacted by Racing.com, Shum said Romantic Warrior had pulled up well from his unprecedented fourth straight Hong Kong Cup win and confirmed the news that he would focus on competing in Hong Kong, rather than jetting off to chase the desert riches. He also confirmed that Romantic Warrior\u2019s next start would be in the G1 Stewards\u2019 Cup at Sha Tin on January 25.<\/p>\n
WATCH: Romantic Warrior’s latest win<\/p>\n
Romantic Warrior did contest all three Triple Crown races in 2023, finishing second in all three legs. Since then though, he\u2019s gone on to win nine more group one races in four different countries.<\/p>\n
Given the news about Romantic Warrior not travelling to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, it remains to be seen whether the rising eight-year-old will race abroad again or if he will remain in Hong Kong for the tail end of his glorious career on the track.<\/p>\n
The Road Warrior: Romantic Warrior\u2019s record on the road<\/p>\n
4th\u00a0G1 Turnbull Stakes, Flemington, October 2023<\/p>\n
1st\u00a0G1 Cox Plate, Moonee Valley, October 2023<\/p>\n
1st\u00a0G1 Yasuda Kinen, Tokyo, June 2024<\/p>\n
1st\u00a0G1 Jebel Hatta, Meydan (Dubai), January 2025<\/p>\n
2nd\u00a0G1 Saudi Cup, Riyadh, February 2025<\/p>\n
2nd\u00a0G1 Dubai Turf, Meydan, April 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2023 Cox Plate hero and four-time Hong Kong Cup winner Romantic Warrior is set to stay in Hong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-196306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196306","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=196306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}