Danny Shum Chap-shing believes his recent experience in Japan with Victor The Winner “will be a big help” as he solidifies Romantic Warrior’s tilt at June’s Group One Yasuda Kinen (1,600m) in Tokyo.

The veteran handler flew over to see Victor The Winner at Chukyo racecourse last week and says the experience filled him with confidence ahead of Romantic Warrior’s trip.

“I haven’t been to Japan for a long time and this time I gained some good experience,” Shum said after Victor The Winner’s brave third in the Group One Takamatsunomiya Kinen (1,200m) on Sunday.

“For us it will be a lot easier to know how to manage a horse in Japan when we have done something like this, and when Romantic Warrior goes over there I think it will be a big help.”

Romantic Warrior has answered every call so far this season, with the six-year-old triumphing Down Under in October’s Group One Cox Plate (2,040m) before stringing together a hat-trick of elite-level wins thanks to successes in December’s Hong Kong Cup (2,000m) and last month’s Gold Cup (2,000m).

Shum’s stable star faces one more challenge in next month’s Group One QE II Cup (2,000m) before making the journey to Tokyo, where the son of Acclamation will step back to 1,600m for the first time since his second in the Group One Stewards’ Cup (1,600m) in January last year.

While Romantic Warrior successfully completed his last overseas mission at Moonee Valley in Melbourne, Shum says the experience of racing in Japan with Victor The Winner was effortless compared to the arduous task of racing in Australia.

“With Australia, the flight is very long and with Tokyo, it takes less than four hours to fly there,” Shum said. “Unlike Australia, the horses stay in the racecourse for quarantine.

“There’s no reason to travel from Chukyo racecourse and the horse saves a lot of energy. As a whole, going to Chukyo was much easier than Australia and even going to the Yasuda Kinen will be easier than travelling to Chukyo because there is no long drive.

“I’m looking forward to it. Of course, it all depends on the QE II Cup but fingers crossed we’ll be back out there in June.”

Japan has 10 raiders entered for a possible match up with Romantic Warrior in the QE II Cup on April 28, headlined by four-time Group One winner Liberty Island and Hong Kong Cup fifth placegetter Prognosis.

Yip’s horse of a lifetime

When Dennis Yip Chor-hong won the 2012-13 Hong Kong trainers’ premiership, he became the first Chinese trainer to win the title in more than a decade.

His victory in Sunday’s BMW Hong Kong Derby was quite the opposite, with the 56-year-old continuing a trend that has seen local handlers snare the city’s most prestigious race in five of the past six years.

It’s an extraordinary run of success, especially when you consider that before Frankie Lor Fu-chuen’s 2019 victory with Furore, you had to go right back to 2001 and Brian Kan Ping-chee’s win with Industrial Pioneer to find the last Chinese handler victorious in the Derby.

Two of those recent Derby winners, Francis Lui Kin-wai’s Golden Sixty and Danny Shum Chap-shing’s Romantic Warrior, have gone onto become the highest earners the city has ever seen and provide their trainers with highs they couldn’t have imagined.

Sunday’s hero, Massive Sovereign, is already Yip’s horse of a lifetime – the Derby triumph was by far his biggest career success – and the canny handler will be dreaming big after he and jockey Zac Purton labelled the four-year-old special after his astonishing win.

The Cox Plate was bandied about as a potential target in the immediate aftermath of the weekend’s epic contest. If Massive Sovereign can serve it up to Romantic Warrior in the QE II Cup, anything is possible.