Francisco Leandro Fernandes Gonçalves is hoping to follow the lead of his friend and idol Joao Moreira when he heads to Sapporo in late August to contest the two-day World All Star Jockeys.
Moreira won the title in 2024 – his second success in the competition – and is a familiar and popular face among horsemen and fans in Japan where he has ridden with sensational success on short-term Japan Racing Association (JRA) licences and had a Group 1 treble during one month this spring, winning the Takamatsunomiya Kinen, the Oka Sho and the Satsuki Sho.
For Gonçalves, the Brazilian ace who is the standout in Argentina as the country’s eight-time champion jockey, the WASJ will be a first experience of Japanese racing. But he has long observed from afar Moreira’s impact in Asia: first the man from Curitiba’s dominance in Singapore, then his game-changing achievements in Hong Kong, and his short-term hits in Japan that have brought 215 JRA wins, including five Group 1s, at an incredible 30 percent win strike rate.
Moreira is, Gonçalves says, “my idol.” The two jockeys go back to their days riding for the Sao Paulo stable of trainer Antonio Luis Cintra Pereira when Moreira was the young emerging champion. Gonçalves was the shy and even younger apprentice from Brazil’s northeast who would become known to fans in his homeland as Leandrinho.
“When I started riding as an apprentice I joined Cintra Pereira and Joao Moreira was the number one rider there, so I was the young kid with Joao riding out together at morning exercise,” Gonçalves says.
“Joao used to talk to me all the time, helping me, telling me, ‘Keep going.’ He has always been a person with an open heart, he doesn’t keep secrets inside of him, he likes to share: normally I didn’t ask much, but I was watching all the time, and I didn’t have a car so he used to take me to the Campinas training centre.
“At that time Joao was a young rider fighting for the championship against two experienced jockeys, Altair Domingos, who went to Argentina, and Nelito Cunha who is now a trainer.”
Moreira, ‘O Fantasma’ – The Ghost – as he was known back then, established his reputation as a champion in Brazil and then moved on to Singapore where he smashed records … then moved to Hong Kong, where he not only smashed records but also found international renown.
Gonçalves, 36, says he watched Moreira’s record-breaking early exploits in Asia from afar, even though it wasn’t easy to find video footage back then. He had opportunities to take the same route but chose not to, opting instead to carve his name in the annals of South American racing by setting his own records.
“It’s funny because since the beginning I thought about Singapore,” he says. “I had an invitation to ride in Singapore back in 2015, but I was in front in the championship in Argentina, so I decided to stay, then I had an injury and nothing happened: I didn’t get first place or the Singapore adventure.
“Later I received another invitation but I was facing the records, so when I beat the record, it was like the path opened: in my mind, I was always thinking about going abroad but chasing the records always kept me in Argentina.”
His 2023 season’s tally of 541 wins is an outright South American record, and that followed his taking down of Jorge Ricardo’s Argentine season’s record he had long been aiming at, the 467 that the world’s all-time winning-most rider had set in 1993.
“From the beginning, my goal always was to beat the record for one season in Argentina,” Gonçalves says. “I started to make a goal to make the 467 total … the same year that I broke the record in Argentina, I also broke the South American record: I tried to go even higher and I managed to reach third all-time in the world with 541 wins in a season.”
Gonçalves was raised in Sobral in the state of Cerea in northeastern Brazil. His father was a farm worker and he grew up around animals, riding horses from about the age of six, “just normal horses in a field,” for fun.
“I grew up in the country,” he says. “My parents had no connection to horse racing, but there were cows and horses, so at first I learned by myself how to ride.”
But his brother, Escobar, was a jockey and trainer on the local circuit and at age 12 Gonçalves, too, started to ride professionally at the area’s two tracks, Sobral and Fortaleza.
He did that for four years, learning all he could, until he was accepted into the Sao Paulo jockey school in August 2006: he was 16.
That led to a strong yet removed connection to Moreira’s old mentor, the legendary jockey and trainer Ivan Quintana.
“The connection is all coincidence,” he says. “When I first arrived there at the Jockey Club in Sao Paulo, Ivan had been deceased only two months. But Ivan’s son Matheus was there in the school, too, we were the same age. But Matheus was too tall and he became my agent, and Talita is Matheus’ sister.”
Talita Quintana is Gonçalves’ wife and they have two daughters. His family will not go with him to Hong Kong at first though.
Gonçalves’ career gained lift-off in Sao Paulo in the years after Moreira had moved to Singapore and Hong Kong.
“I won two championships in Brazil in 2012 and 2013,” he says, “and I was in front the next season when I went to Argentina.”
He had ridden in Argentina twice before then and had finished second in South America’s biggest race, the G1 Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini on the Brazilian raider Veranaio, at the end of 2011.
“A Brazilian journalist told me a good trainer in Argentina was interested in a Brazilian rider, and I’d fallen in love with the Argentinean horses and racetracks when I had ridden there, so took the opportunity, not knowing or imagining the success I would have,” he says.
He was scouted by owner Nacho Pavlovsky and teamed up with him and trainer Jorge Neer, but for the first six months in Argentina he was only allowed to ride for his sponsoring connection. Despite that restriction, his first season riding at Argentina’s three big tracks – San Isidro, Palermo and La Plata – was a success and turned heads.
“It was a big surprise,” Gonçalves says. “My first Grade 1 was during that first six months. Only with one owner, even then I was third, so the next year, the expectations were big and I was in front of everyone but I had a horrible fall and broke my leg.”
That happened at Palermo, right at the start in a 1000-metre straight race. His mount fought for its head, veered to the rail and pitched Gonçalves into it. He was out for five months and the title was gone from his grasp.
He recovered, was crowned Argentina’s jockey of the year for the first time in 2016, and has dominated that title every year since 2018. Those championships and his records bring him the greatest sense of career achievement.
“It’s not like winning an isolated Graded Stakes,” he says. “It’s the result of years of consistency, so that is why this is so important, in the achievement. Also, it’s my name in the history of South American horseracing, which is nice, especially as a Brazilian guy, because in Brazil, we get little recognition.
“I have a strong fan base in Argentina, especially at Palermo, the city racetrack, like Happy Valley: fans taking pictures every time, which is something I’m grateful for because in Brazil no one would take a picture or ask for a photo. In Brazil, people (generally) don’t know who I am or who Joao Moreira is, but in Argentina, people will recognise me outside of the race track.”
Moreira has a strong fan base in Japan, and if Gonçalves can make a good first impression in Sapporo, he too will experience firsthand the idolising force of Japanese racing fandom. ∎
