Joao Moreira rises from a chastening defeat to reclaim the Hong Kong jockeys’ title
Joao Moreira’s victory in the Hong Kong premiership has ended a period of needling dissatisfaction for the Brazilian ace and, while he is finding the triumph to be particularly sweet, a campaign of unrelenting focus means he is eager for the moment when this term’s remaining three meetings are behind him.
The man from Curitiba has 152 wins on the board and is 29 ahead of his great rival Zac Purton, who is suspended for two of those. Moreira’s performance in sealing a fourth premiership completes a glorious turnaround from a year ago when he stalled miserably on the lead and struggled through the final weeks a deflated second-best behind the Australian, who was able to collect his fourth crown and third in succession.
“Sitting on the bench for the last three years, not being the champion jockey, that built a frustration within me. Being able to bounce back, it becomes much more meaningful,” Moreira told Asia Bloodstock News.
“Last year was a frustration because I pushed it hard, I wanted to win, I wanted to get back into the pole position but I didn’t. That bad feeling was in myself. When I started this season, I decided I would either do it properly or I would pull the pin very soon. But I was very committed to work very hard, put in the proper research, spend a lot of time doing the rides, and right away we had a good start.”
Back in July 2017, any notion that Moreira might be in that situation, within just three years of a record win haul, was implausible. Upon arriving from Singapore in October 2013, he rocked the Hong Kong ranks with a debut season 97 wins to place second in the table, despite a raft of suspensions and having landed six weeks into the campaign. He dominated the next three seasons, posting mammoth totals of 145, 168 and 170 wins in a jurisdiction that had for so long seen 100 as the high bar.
But Moreira found out the hard way that the tables can turn rapidly in Hong Kong and Purton came out fighting to regain the title he first won in 2014. After losing the crown in 2018, Moreira left Hong Kong, determined to live his ambition of riding full-time in Japan: a JRA language test fail gave the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) the opportunity to ask him back, and as part of that arrangement he spent one season as stable jockey to John Size, thus limiting how many outside rides he could take and writing off any chance at the title.
Then came the 2019-20 season, when Moreira, seemingly unshackled, at first looked to be back to his peak and streaked to a ten-win lead, only for Purton to chip away as only Purton does. Moreira had to swallow some bitter truths in the wake of that defeat, which he believes were the foundation for his title reclamation.
“I learned much more from that season than any other,” he said. “I learned that I’m not unique, I’m not competing just with myself: I’ve got other riders around me that are very good as well and they also deserve respect. They also deserve support, and if I want to keep on having good results and support, I’ve got to keep on working hard. I can’t relax for even one stage, which I have done in the past and it cost me big time.”
At the end of last season Moreira reassessed and pinpointed his two most costly errors: the way he interacted with trainers – his management of relationships with them around which horses to ride and when – and the number of suspensions he was handed. Going into the 2020-21 term, he set out to rectify those issues.
“This season has been a different story and I couldn’t be any happier with it. I think the downside that I went through has been really good for me,” he continued.
“I didn’t find it difficult here when I first came, I honestly didn’t. But everyone realised they had to lift and they did it, then I had people around me and even ahead so I had to think about it and make changes. You work hard, that’s no secret, but more difficult is maintaining consistency. If you sit still people will go past you and that has happened to me at times. I’ve learned in the hardest ways, to be honest.”
With those lessons logged, Moreira started the 2020-21 term with not only his biggest ally John Size onside, but also Caspar Fownes – the current premiership leader – a handler who, while also supportive of Moreira, was historically aligned more closely with Purton.
Fownes and Size, as of Sunday, have provided Moreira with 50 per cent of his wins this term, divided evenly. The champion has almost a 22 per cent strike rate for Size and close to 24 per cent for Fownes.
“Caspar and Zac fell into some disagreement and with Caspar having so many good rides, of course I was going to put myself forward. With that number of good rides in my hands it was obvious I was going to be hard to beat,” Moreira noted.
Purton had to deal with an ongoing hamstring issue this term and in past years has dealt with the pain of kidney stones, and Moreira understands that situation. He revealed that a major frustration of his 2019-20 campaign was the injuries he, too, had to deal with. The Brazilian, 37, is eight months younger than Purton, 38, and both are at an age when the body starts to feel the effects of athletic rigours.
Moreira revealed there was a period during that season when he spent four days out of seven in hospital for treatment after he twisted his knee in a barrier trial incident. It took six weeks to recover. But that was nothing to the nine months he was working through a hip injury.
“When you start feeling the pain and things don’t get better, you get cranky and sour, you don’t enjoy what you’re doing. During the time that I was having those injury issues, my mind was destroyed,” he said.
“Every person here who is working at the Jockey Club has a position, and to lose that reputation and position, it is right there from day to day: you have to be sharp, try to always be ahead of what’s coming next, if you’re not able to really figure it out quickly, things are going to collapse, they’ll go backwards, and that’s going to affect you psychologically, big time. And in Hong Kong that’s the most difficult thing to handle for some people, the pressure and the psychological issue.”
Moreira has gone on record previously about the stresses of seeing his wife and two children experience the disappointment of last year’s failure.
“This season, things went much better and it was the opposite feeling at home. I don’t want to let down my family. I don’t ever want my kids to think I give up easily. Set an example, do the right things and they’re likely to copy,” he said.
Moreira found himself in something of a mentor role in the jockeys’ room, too, this season. Part of the HKJC’s Covid-19 safeguarding measures saw the room split and separated so as to reduce the potential for the whole cohort being knocked out of action by one positive test result. His group included, among others, Vincent Ho, Derek Leung, Keith Yeung, Jerry Chau and Alfred Chan.
“Those young guys got taught at their academy to look up to those guys they admire the most and copy them, which is what I was told as well in Brazil. I found myself in this environment and I had to be a kind of an example,” he said.
“I have Jerry Chau and Alfie Chan coming and talking to me; they’re polite and respectful and being with these guys is very comfortable and relaxed.”
The champion is looking forward to a well-earned break before he sets about planning a determined defence of the title he has regained. But he is also aware that a clock is ticking.
“I see myself riding here for the next couple of years, at least, but how long, I can’t say, because it all depends on my health as I get older. I’m getting heavier,” he revealed.
“As age is catching up, my body is taking longer to recover and also it’s not able to burn the energy I consume as fast as it could before. I’m now having to waste a lot more to ride at my minimum weight: it’s tough on the body.
“I can last a bit longer riding at my current minimum weight but I honestly can’t put a timeframe on that. I could raise my minimum to 118 pounds, but that would slim up my opportunities and I don’t want to put myself in that spot yet. I still feel I’m healthy enough to keep pushing hard for a little longer before I do that.”
But, when he feels his body telling him it is time, the ‘Magic Man’ intends to disappear from the jockey game with no intention of reappearing.
“When I’m done, I’m done,” he added. “I’ll pull the pin and the day I do that I won’t be race-riding again. I won’t come back: I’ll be looking for something else I love to do.”