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Mark Newnham says he was left disappointed after My Wish was overlooked for the Champion Miler title at Friday night's Champions Awards at the Rosewood Hong Kong — questioning how a horse that raced just once in the qualifying distance range could win the division.
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Romantic Warrior, named a shock joint Horse of the Year alongside Ka Ying Rising in the first shared award in the honor's history, took home three divisional titles courtesy of his unbeaten six-for-six campaign, collecting Champion Miler, Champion Middle-Distance Horse and Champion Stayer.
But the Champion Miler award covers races from 1,400 meters to 1,800 meters – and Romantic Warrior's only start in that range all season was his Triple Crown-opening victory in the Stewards' Cup in January, a race in which My Wish finished unplaced.
Newnham conceded the head-to-head record and the gulf in class, but argued his five-year-old's sustained excellence across the division should have carried the day.
"I was disappointed for the horse," Newnham said. "He won against international competition and his body of work over the season, in that category – 1,400 meters to 1,800 meters – he won a Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 and was placed in another Group 3.
"Romantic Warrior raced once in that category. I would have thought that a season's work to be the 2025/26 miler of the year would have been considered – one season, not one race.
"Not for one minute am I saying that he is a better horse than Romantic Warrior, he is clearly not, but I would have thought they took the same season into account."
My Wish put together the most complete season of any specialist miler in Hong Kong, opening with victory in the Group 3 Celebration Cup, adding the Group 2 Sha Tin Trophy, and crowning his campaign with a Group 1 triumph over international rivals in the Champions Mile at Sha Tin in April.
Romantic Warrior's claims were of a different order – the Danny Shum-trained superstar returned from fetlock surgery to win all six starts, becoming just the third horse in Hong Kong history to sweep the Triple Crown – which started with the Stewards’ Cup – after River Verdon and Voyage Bubble, and pushing his world-record career earnings to HK$288.7 million.
The miler debate was one of the few sour notes on an otherwise triumphant evening for Newnham, whose BMW Hong Kong Derby winner Invincible Ibis was a dual winner, named Champion Four-Year-Old and Most Improved Horse.
