James McDonald was suspended and fined HK$120,000 after stewards ruled he rode Romantic Warrior carelessly in Sunday’s Champions & Chater Cup Group 1 in Hong Kong, even as he steered the champion to victory in the 2400m feature.
The suspension runs from June 3 to June 11, and the penalty leaves McDonald free to ride in Saturday’s Queensland Derby while ruling him out of the Queensland Oaks the following weekend. The fine was reported as AU$21,400.
The hearing found McDonald guilty of careless riding near the 300m mark. Stewards said he directed Romantic Warrior inward when not sufficiently clear of Deep Monster, causing heavy contact down the straight. It was a sharp ending to a race that gave McDonald his 20th Group 1 win of the season and his 13th victory on Romantic Warrior.
For Romantic Warrior, the win carried historical weight. The horse joined River Verdon and Voyage Bubble as only the third runner to complete Hong Kong’s Triple Crown, which covers the Stewards' Cup over 1600m, the Hong Kong Gold Cup over 2000m and the Standard Chartered Champions & Chater Cup over 2400m. It was also Romantic Warrior’s 11th straight win in Hong Kong, taking his record to 24 wins from 31 starts and lifting his earnings to about $50 million.
McDonald said after the race that Romantic Warrior was a Triple Crown winner who fully deserved the praise and added that he agreed with trainer Danny Shum’s description of the horse as an immortal. He also said the horse did not need the latest win to deserve that label, but had put the cherry on top, and that he should be horse of the year after sealing the Triple Crown.
The punishment has already sparked debate among fans, especially because an initial stewards inquiry had cleared McDonald before the later guilty finding. The case came only months after McDonald broke Damien Oliver’s previous mark of 129 Group 1 victories, extending his status as the Australasian record-holder for the most top-level wins. The 2021 Melbourne Cup-winning jockey remains set to miss the Queensland Oaks, while Romantic Warrior’s place in Hong Kong racing history is now secure.
