Champion jockey James McDonald has described Romantic Warrior as oozing confidence as the gelding aims to win an unprecedented fourth HK$40 million G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup (2000m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (14 December).<\/p>
McDonald said he couldn\u2019t have been happier with the gelding\u2019s gallop today (Tuesday, 9 December) when he was accompanied by stablemate Romantic Thor over 1200m on Sha Tin\u2019s turf track and clocked 1m 16.9s, with a final 400m split of 22.3s.<\/p>
\u201cHe is prepping up lovely,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cHe worked with Romantic Thor, stablemate, nice and easy and breezed home well.<\/p>
\u201cHe is oozing confidence, that\u2019s for sure. He is stretching well and I can\u2019t say he is getting any better, but he definitely hasn\u2019t declined.\u201d<\/p>
McDonald said Romantic Warrior had maintained a very high standard and his work suggested he was a very happy horse.<\/p>
\u201cBut he has always been a happy horse in his work, he loves it and he is bubbling with confidence, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>
After being sidelined for 232 days following surgery to his left-fore fetlock, the seven-year-old gelding returned in superb fashion last month when winning the G2 BOCHK Jockey Club Cup (2000m) at Sha Tin.<\/p>
Romantic Warrior became the first triple winner of the LONGINES Hong Kong Cup last year after victories in the jurisdiction\u2019s richest race in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Romantic Warrior wins the 2024 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
McDonald will also be reunited with Galaxy Patch in the HK$36 million G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Mile (1600m) after their last start victory in the G2 BOCHK Private Wealth<\/em> Jockey Club Mile (1600m) at Sha Tin last month.<\/p> \u201cHe was superb that day and obviously got a lot of luck on that particular occasion but he did the job well,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p> \u201cI feel he got a lot of confidence out of that race and has had mid-race prep in between, and that trial was superb, I thought.<\/p> \u201cSo, he is obviously full of confidence and he is going to need to be because it\u2019s a very tough field but he is going the right way.\u201d<\/p> McDonald is confident that Galaxy Patch is a Group 1 quality horse, but admits the gelding\u2019s racing style has hindered his chances of winning at the top level so far.<\/p> \u201cHe needs a lot of luck in a race, a big field might suit him with a bit of tempo on and he does get back and who knows,\u201d he said.<\/p> \u201cHe has definitely got the ability to overcome certain obstacles during a race. He is going to have to be on his A-game, and I feel he is judging by his trial the other day. He is feeling really, really good and I\u2019m happy to be on him.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10486″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] McDonald admitted it was going to be a tough race to win with opposition like Voyage Bubble, a horse he rode to four Group 1 victories, including last year\u2019s LONGINES Hong Kong Mile.<\/p> Voyage Bubble finished second to Romantic Warrior when they clashed in their last start in November.<\/p> \u201cThere is Soul Rush who we all know so well and others, too,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cMy Wish is the new kid on the block. It\u2019s such a competitive race and probably out of the four (Group 1) races, it\u2019s probably the most competitive race.\u201d<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10485″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Champion jockey James McDonald has described Romantic Warrior as oozing confidence as the gelding aims to win an unprecedented fourth HK$40 million G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup (2000m) at Sha Tin on Sunday (14 December).McDonald said he couldn\u2019t have been happier with the gelding\u2019s gallop today (Tuesday, 9 December) when he… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"2normal","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10484"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10484"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10583,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10484\/revisions\/10583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/racing-event-hub-hkir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}