When Romantic Warrior is named Horse of the Year next month, his connections might not only be celebrating the best campaign Hong Kong has seen in 2023-24 but also the best season ever assembled by a galloper trained in the city.

He’s not the first Hong Kong-trained horse to win twice overseas in the same campaign, but when it comes to degree of difficulty, Romantic Warrior has pulled off something never before seen from a horse trained out of Sha Tin.

While not a double attempted all that often, by winning Sunday’s Group One Yasuda Kinen (1,600m) in Tokyo, Danny Shum Chap-shing’s superstar became the first galloper to win that famed mile contest and the Group One Cox Plate (2,040m).

And Romantic Warrior not only landed victories in the Cox Plate and the Yasuda Kinen in the same campaign, but sandwiched Group One wins on home soil in the Hong Kong Cup, Gold Cup and QE II Cup in between.

Owner Peter Lau Pak-fai must be commended for having the audacity to attempt the step back to a mile for one of Japan’s biggest races, but Shum’s training effort is something else altogether.

After overcoming the myriad of challenges Romantic Warrior faced when travelling to Australia for the Cox Plate, from feed issues and CT scans to quarantine and facilities, Shum again went to work to ensure Lau achieved his dream of racing a horse in Japan, where he has strong ties as the co-founder of Hong Kong’s Japan Home Centre.

To keep Romantic Warrior at his peak from October’s Cox Plate until Sunday’s Yasuda Kinen is a training effort that will be marvelled at for decades to come, and the trainer’s reaction to the win said it all.

“If we talk about difficulty, it’s not as hard as the Cox Plate. But this means a lot more than the win in Australia,” Shum said after the Yasuda Kinen.

“Because when I was assistant trainer, I followed my boss Ivan Allan and we won the Yasuda Kinen with Fairy King Prawn [in 2000].

“I am very grateful to Mr Allan for giving me a chance. He taught me how to bring horses abroad, how to be meticulous, how to be the best. Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t say sorry – there is no sorry. I remember all these things in my life.”

And then there’s Romantic Warrior, who now sits second on the all-time prize money list after Sunday’s win.

The debate about Hong Kong’s best horse will go on forever, but right now it’s hard to argue that there’s ever been a galloper race in the city that you’d choose to own ahead of Romantic Warrior.

A case can be made for the mighty Silent Witness and his record 17-race winning streak, while there are plenty that will never look past Golden Sixty.

Of course, Golden Sixty still has more prize money, more wins, more Group One victories, a 2-0 head-to-head advantage over Romantic Warrior and a longer period of dominance including a Covid-19 stretch where Hong Kong needed a beacon of hope.

But for the sheer thrill of twice winning the city’s richest race, the Hong Kong Cup, and the euphoria of plundering the prestigious Cox Plate and then having the nerve to pillage the Yasuda Kinen for good measure, Romantic Warrior has delivered Lau an ownership experience reserved for very few before him.