In the three decades since Hong Kong's original globe-trotter River Verdon first traveled away from Sha Tin to represent the city on the world stage, dozens have followed in his footsteps.
Excluding trips to Macau, 24 Hong Kong-trained horses have won across eight different countries on surfaces ranging from Santa Anita's dirt track to the deep Seoul sand.
Which of these have been the best international representatives for Hong Kong? But first, what constitutes the best?
This list takes into account a horse's profile away from Hong Kong, but only while prepared by a Hong Kong trainer. Extra credit is given to consistency and longevity, while we also weighed up the all-around impact of a horse's performance: factors like legacy, influence and popularity were all taken into account.
5. Aerovelocity
Trainer: Paul O'Sullivan
Best remembered as a two-time Hong Kong Sprint winner, it was the season in which Aerovelocity won the race the first time in 2014-15 that stamped him as a top traveler. At his last two appearances of the season, Paul O'Sullivan's aggressive sprinter won the 2015 Takamatsunomiya Kinen at Chukyo before landing the final KrisFlyer International Sprint at Kranji. No Hong Kong horse has built up a sprint season like it.
4. Vengeance Of Rain
Trainer: David Ferraris
Not all Group 1 races are created equal. When looking at the races won by Hong Kong horses, the Dubai Sheema Classic stands out as the best among them. The 2007 Sheema Classic may not have been the best running of the staying feature but it did boast the previous year's Derby winner (Sir Percy), a Breeders' Cup Turf winner (Red Rocks), a Melbourne Cup and Arima Kinen runner-up (Pop Rock) and well-performed Europeans like Youmzain, Quijano and Laverock. They were all left in the wake of the remarkable Vengeance Of Rain, who shook off a fairly lackluster season to that point.
3. Cape Of Good Hope
Trainer: David Oughton
From June 2004 to February 2006, Cape Of Good Hope became Hong Kong's most prolific globe-trotter of all time with 12 starts across the UK, Japan and Australia. It was as much down to circumstance as anything else - Silent Witness was running rampant in Hong Kong while the introduction of the Global Sprint Challenge in 2005 proved another carrot for trainer David Oughton and owner Guy Carstairs.
While the speedster "only" won two Group 1 races from his 12 overseas starts, taking the 2005 Golden Jubilee Stakes at a unique Royal Ascot meeting run at York and the 2005 Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley, he was placed in a further seven races.
2. Rich Tapestry
Trainer: Michael Chang
When thinking of the top sprinters to come out of Hong Kong, Rich Tapestry would struggle to crack the top 10 and may even slip outside the top 20. However, as an international traveler, the Michael Chang Chun-wai-trained gelding is almost unmatched. His status as the only Hong Kong horse to win an American Grade 1 on dirt - the 2014 Santa Anita Sprint Championship - would earn him a spot on this list as is.
However, his ability to perform on multiple continents across seasons and on different surfaces (dirt, Tapeta, turf) - including two Group 3 victories at Meydan as well as a narrow Golden Shaheen second - ensures he is closest to top billing.
1. Romantic Warrior
Trainer: Danny Shum
It would have been difficult to have Romantic Warrior cracking the top five solely on his Cox Plate win given the strength of those already in the list. Add in his June 2024 Yasuda Kinen and, now, his Jebel Hatta victory this past weekend, though, and he becomes the logical and rightful headline act among this group.
He is the first Hong Kong-trained horse to win Group 1 races across four territories. To win Australia's top weight-for-age 2000m race and then add Japan's top all-age mile race is a seriously impressive achievement and the world's richest race now awaits him next month in Saudi Arabia.
Honorable Mentions:
A pair of Yasuda Kinen winners, Fairy King Prawn and Bullish Luck, find themselves on the outside looking in.
Fairy King Prawn would have made the five if Romantic Warrior hadn't won the Yasuda Kinen. That race marked a full circle not just for Danny Shum Chap-shing, assistant to Ivan Allan in 2000 when Fairy King Prawn became Hong Kong's first winner abroad, but for Hong Kong racing as a whole.
In addition to Bullish Luck's 2006 Yasuda Kinen victory, which came on the second of three attempts, he produced Hong Kong's best performance in the Dubai World Cup when third to Invasor in 2007. On the whole, though, his overseas forays see him fall just short.
The closest to a left-field inclusion was champion stayer Indigenous. His second to Special Week in the 1999 Japan Cup - with the likes of High-Rise, Montjeu, Stay Gold and Tiger Hill in behind - ranks as one of the best performances by a Hong Kong horse on the world stage.
As a trailblazer, few can match another horse trained by Shum: Little Bridge. He certainly does have that standout victory from the 2012 King's Stand Stakes. It takes something special for a two-time traveler to make the cut and, despite his Royal Ascot success, that lack of longevity meant he did not qualify.
Others in the mix include Lucky Nine (11 starts abroad), Dan Excel (won 2016 and 2017 SAI Cup in Singapore), Silent Witness (third behind Bullish Luck in the 2005 Yasuda Kinen, won the 2005 Sprinters' Stakes and fourth in the 2006 Sprinters Stakes) and Sacred Kingdom (2009 KrisFlyer Sprint, Singapore), but each is shy of the high benchmark set by our jet-setting top five.
