Romantic Warrior on Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse will be favored to become just the second two-time winner of the Group 1, $4.61 million Hong Kong Cup. He’ll be hard-pressed to top his 2022 performance, a 4 1/2-length blowout while facing 11 rivals, but Romantic Warrior appears to be just as good now as he was a year ago. Hong Kong’s second-best horse behind the great Golden Sixty, Romantic Warrior exits a nose victory Oct. 28 in the Group 1 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in Australia, a rare major race abroad for a Hong Kong-based star. Romantic Warrior had prepped for the Cox Plate three weeks earlier and connections always had targeted the Hong Kong Cup as a major goal. “I think he’s still improving,” trainer Clifford Shum told Hong Kong Jockey Club publicity. “He’s been great since Australia, no problem at all.” The Hong Kong-based California Memory in 2011 and 2012 is the lone horse to have notched consecutive wins in the Cup, which is contested over 2,000 meters, about 1 1/4 miles, around two turns. Golden Sixty is the only horse to beat Romantic Warrior at the distance, and Romantic Warrior, a 1 1/4-mile horse through and through, drew well in post 7 and will be difficult to beat at a short price. On international ratings, Luxembourg is Romantic Warrior’s equal, but that is unlikely to prove the case in Sunday’s race. Trained by Aidan O’Brien, who has runners in all four Group 1s on the card, Luxembourg does possess strong 1 1/4-mile credentials having won the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup over the distance this past spring. His most recent race came in the 1 1/4-mile Irish Champion Stakes on Sept. 9 at Leopardstown, where he was second, beaten a half-length by Auguste Rodin, who returned to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Luxembourg had been intended for a start in the Group 1 Champion Stakes on Oct. 21 but was taken out of that race when the course at Ascot came up far softer than the colt prefers. The mount of Ryan Moore, Luxembourg must cope with an outside draw, post 10 in an 11-runner field. A European horse hasn’t won the Cup since Snow Fairy in 2010. :: Hong Kong: Free PPs, picks, analysis, replays, and live streaming Horses from Japan, however, have won five of the last seven renewals, and two are entered Sunday. Rousham Park is an improving 4-year-old, while Prognosis had the misfortune of running into the mighty Equinox, finishing third to him last out in the Tenno Sho Autumn. That’s solid form, but there’s also the fact that Romantic Warrior beat Prognosis by two lengths April 30 in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Sha Tin. Hong Kong Vase While O’Brien’s horses and other European runners have floundered in the Cup and the Hong Kong Mile, they have done well in the 1 1/2-mile Hong Kong Vase, and O’Brien stands a strong chance of winning the race for the fourth time, with Warm Heart. Warm Heart is one of just nine in the Group 1, $2.69 million Vase, run over a 2,400-meter trip that is farther than the best Hong Kong horses are accustomed to handling. The distance, however, is exactly what Warm Heart wants, and she’d be a major factor even without the weight break she receives as a 3-year-old filly, nine pounds from the race’s older males. Warm Heart, who excels on firmer footing, won back-to-back 1 1/2-mile Group 1s earlier this year, capturing the Yorkshire Oaks before winning the Prix Vermeille on Sept. 10. She was brought fresh to the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf last month at Santa Anita, where she ran her race but simply was outkicked to the wire by the top-class Inspiral, who better suited that short-stretch 1 1/4-mile contest than Warm Heart. Breaking from post 1 under Moore, Warm Heart will win the Vase if she even approaches her best form. Hong Kong Sprint Lucky Sweynesse ended his 2022-23 Hong Kong campaign with six straight wins, including three Group 1s. But was it too much of a good thing? Even after landing his third Group 1, Lucky Sweynesse came back late in the Hong Kong season, on June 4, to win a relatively minor Group 3. The demanding string of races appeared to have taken its toll when Lucky Sweynesse lost his first two starts this season. He eked out a narrow win last month in the Group 2 Jockey Club Sprint but will need something better than that to land the Group 1, $3.33 million Hong Kong Sprint. His nine rivals in the 1,200-meter test include two horses that raced in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, Aesop’s Fables and Jasper Krone, and a third, Highfield Princess, who passed the BC Turf Sprint to start in Hong Kong. Jasper Krone, a one-way speed horse, faded to last of 12 in the BC Turf Sprint, but Aesop’s Fables finished third, his second strong race since he began racing in blinkers. The first came in the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp, where he finished a solid third in a race won by Highfield Princess, one of Europe’s top sprinters the last two years. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.