There was a mixture of surprise and disappointment among Hong Kong’s racing fans and participants on Thursday following the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s statement that it would not be granting a short-term stable jockey licence to the circuit’s four-time champion jockey Joao Moreira.
Caspar Fownes is the man who wants Moreira on board as his stable’s retained rider, with the four-time champion trainer keen to employ the Brazilian sensation’s rare skills and know-how to drive what he hopes might be a push for the trainers’ premiership.
Fownes was taking the news with pragmatic resignation, telling Idol Horse, “It is what it is,” but was also clear that he still wants Moreira on board at some point before the season ends.
“I understand the Club’s situation, they’ve said what that is, and we’ll just be applying for him to come in before the season’s out, so there’s no drama, it’s a long season,” the trainer said. “We’ll work on the dates and he’ll either apply to come in as a club jockey or as a stable jockey for me, so that’s what we’ll work on going forward.”
That might take some juggling of schedules with Moreira likely to be in demand by his retained owner in Brazil, Haras Rio Iguassu, as well as Japanese interests keen to use him during any potential short-term stint during the JRA’s Group 1 spring features.
The Jockey Club statement – which came a day after the Club announced James McDonald, Hollie Doyle and Maxime Guyon for the November through December period that Moreira was hoping to ride, as well as Dylan Browne McMonagle for a January start – said it had “determined that there is no availability for retained jockeys” during the first half of the current season.
It also stated that retained jockeys must apply by a deadline of December 1 if they want to ride for a period after February 17, seemingly ruling out Moreira or any other rider being granted a licence to ride before that date.
In a statement to Hong Kong media, the club’s executive director, racing Andrew Harding said the planning for jockeys’ licensing “takes place months in advance” and “forward planning is essential” and spoke about ensuring that the club balances such factors as the “resilience of the roster”.
Moreira, one of the biggest names in the sport globally and a six-time Group 1 winner in Japan and Brazil already this year, is no stranger to riding as a stable jockey. He left Hong Kong for Japan in 2018 only to fail the JRA’s test to gain a full-time licence there in early October of that year, but he was back at Sha Tin riding as stable jockey to John Size by December 9, the club having announced the granting of his licence on November 17.
Gerald Mosse, who rode for Manfred Man, and Tommy Berry riding for John Moore are two other high profile stable jockey appointments in the past decade, in an era when stable retained riders have fallen out of fashion in a jurisdiction that has long prided itself on being one of the sport’s most competitive and hard-nosed arenas of competition.
Harding also stated that the club had determined it was not possible to licence Moreira “without undermining the club’s recruitment strategy and being unfair to the jockeys who have already made commitments to ride in Hong Kong.” ∎
