THERE were smiles aplenty at the Arqana December Sale among the Corduff Stud traveling team of James, David and Henrietta Egan on Sunday morning as they watch their homebred Romantic Warrior hold off the challenge of Luxembourg to land the biggest of the four Group 1 races at Sha Tin in Hong Kong.

What a horse, what a race, and what a day of international racing. The numbers recorded on the day are all out of this world, whether you are talking about the numbers on the track, the betting on the races, or the prize money on offer. Romantic Warrior, a son of the 24-year-old Acclamation (Royal Applause) took his career winnings to just over €14 million with win number 12 in 17 starts, and his reward for winning his second Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Cup was some €2.4 million. Staggering.

Regular readers of the column will be very familiar with the story of Romantic Warrior, so on this occasion I will give you a much-shortened version. Five of his wins have been at Group 1 level, and importantly he has travelled outside Hong Kong to establish his credentials as one of the world’s best, recently annexing the Group 1 WS Cox Plate in Australia. He has been placed three times, significantly all seeing him run second Group 1 contests in Hong Kong.

Achievements

No need to dwell on the achievements of Rathbarry Stud’s Acclamation, or explain why he is so popular, His sons include a plethora of successful racehorses and stallions, such as Dark Angel and Mehmas, his daughters include the 6,000,000gns mare Marsha, a record that still stands, while he is the maternal grandsire of Group 1 winners Broome and Eqtidaar.

Bred in Co Kildare by Corduff Stud and octogenarian American Tim Rooney, Romantic Warrior cost Michael Kinane, for the Hong Kong Jockey Club in his first season as their selector, 300,000gns in Book 2 of the 2019 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. Peter Lau then purchased him at the HKJC International sale for the equivalent of €550,000.

Romantic Warrior is a son of Folk Melody (Street Cry), bought for €82,000 through Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock at Goffs. A Godolphin homebred, Folk Melody won a 16-runner maiden at Newmarket over seven furlongs at two. She is one of five winners out of the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes winner Folk Opera (Singspiel) who also won the Group 2 Prix Jean Romanet in its last staging before being upgraded to Group 1 status.

Golden Sixty

What can be said about Golden Sixty that has not been said many times before? He is a true legend in Hong Kong, has only ever raced at Sha Tin, and now he is the winner of 26 of his 30 starts, and his three placed efforts have come in Group 1 races. He is the horse who has inflicted two of the defeats suffered by Romantic Warrior.

Now try to absorb these numbers. The Australian-bred Golden Sixty, born in 2015, is also a son of a 24-year-old sire, and like Acclamation, Medaglia D’Oro is hale and hearty and facing into another season under the Darley banner in Kentucky. Not surprisingly, with winnings of €18.8 million, Golden Sixty is the biggest earner by the stallion, and one of his 26 Group/Grade 1 winners, a list that includes such stars as Songbird and Rachel Alexandra.

Medaglia D’Oro was trained by Bobby Frankel for a record of eight wins and seven seconds in 17 starts, his successes including the Grade 1 Travers Stakes, Whitney Handicap and Donn Handicap (now the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes).

Important races

Golden Sixty has made a habit of winning important races more than once, and on Sunday he was winning the Group 1 Hong Kong Gold Mile for the third time, and was once runner-up. He also won the Group 1 Champions Mile for a third time back in April, and has won both the Group 1 Hong Kong Gold Cup and Group 1 Stewards’ Cup twice. He has been Hong Kong’s Horse of the Year for the last four seasons.

Golden Sixty is the best of six winning progeny of Gaudeamus, a daughter of Distorted Humor (Forty Niner) who was purchased as a yearling at Keeneland in 2005 for $60,000 and joined Jim Bolger’s string at Coolcullen. She raced in the colours of Jackie Bolger who owned her in partnership with the late John Corcoran. After a debut win at Naas, she followed up with victories in the Listed Woodpark and Ballysheehan Studs Stakes at the Curragh, and the Group 2 Robert H Griffin Debutante Stakes at Leopardstown.

Having sold as a yearling for A$120,000 at the 2017 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale, Golden Sixty went through the ring again as a two-year-old in New Zealand where he made NZ$300,000 to the bid of his current trainer Francis Lui. Golden Sixty was bred by Ascot International Pty Ltd in Queensland.

Junko

In the spring, Ace Impact will embark on his new stallion career at Haras de Beaumont, where he will stand alongside Intello (Galileo). The latter received a timely boost when the André Fabre-trained Junko, a four-year-old son of the 2013 Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby winner added the Group1 Hong Kong Vase to a prior success in a German Group 1.

Junko is just the third Group/Grade 1 winner for Intello, joining Prix Jean Prat hero Intellogent and the United Nations Handicap winner Adhamo. That trio are among 23 blacktype winners for the sire who is set to cover at a fee of €8,000 in 2024, well down on the £25,000 he commanded when retiring to Cheveley Park Stud nine years ago.

Bred and raced by the Wertheimer brothers, Junko is the best of the three winning offspring from Lady Zuzu (Dynaformer). That two-year-old winner was placed in a couple of graded stakes, and she cost the Wertheimers $2,350,000 as a four-year-old, carrying her first foal, the subsequent winner Warzuzu (War Front). Mind you, Lady Zuzu was an expensive yearling purchase when she realised $1,225,000.

Her yearling value was influenced by, among other factors, the fact that her half-brother Optimizer (English Channel) was a multiple Grade 3 winner and he had been placed three times at Grade 1 level. Junko’s third dam was the Grade 1 winner Fantastic Find (Mr Prospector), and the star of her nine winners was Finder’s Fee (Storm Cat). That Grade 1 Acorn Stakes and Matron Stakes winner is the third dam of the unbeaten champion Flightline (Tapit).

Lucky Sweynesse

On a card where the four Group 1 winners consisted of two apiece bred in the northern and southern hemispheres, the New Zealand-bred Lucky Sweynesse added the Hong Kong Sprint to three other triumphs at the highest level.

This was win number 15 for the five-year-old son of Sweynesse (Lonhro), gained in 21 career starts, and he was placed on five of the remaining outings. The consistency of the runners in Hong Kong is quite something. There is a tentative Irish connection to Lucky Sweynesse, as his stakes-winning dam, Madonna Mia is a daughter of the former Tally-Ho Stud stallion Red Clubs (Red Ransom).

Madonna Mia won nine times in all, and from three foals she has produced a pair of winners, the other being Lucky Sweynesse’s full-sister Signora Nera (Sweynesse). She did not manage a blacktype win but she was placed in the Group 1 Queensland Oaks. Madonna Mia is the best of six winners from Hill Of Hope (Danehill), and that mare’s grandam was the leading runner and influential matron Beach Gown (Cerreto).

A Group 3 winner and runner-up in the Group 1 Randwick Guineas, Sweynesse was the leading first season sire in New Zealand, but to date the Hong Kong champion is his only winner at the highest level. One of his other five stakes winners, Bonita Aurelia, is also out of a Red Clubs mare.