No Walk In The Park: How Joao Got His Joy Back

JOAO MOREIRA is sitting outside Blue Bottle Coffee on a Wednesday afternoon near the south exit of Shinjuku station, Tokyo, when one of Japan’s many fresh-faced racing fans requests a selfie. Politely, of course. 

Twenty-eight year-old Haruka is typical of the new wave of Japanese racing fandom catalysed by cultural phenomenon Uma Musume and embraced by fan-first racecourses that reverberate with a rock show atmosphere on Group 1 race days. And, of course, enchanted by some of the finest racehorses in the world. 

Haruka has only been following horse racing for 12-months, but is already in love with the sport. 

“My favourite jockey is Yutaka Take, but I will definitely brag to my friends about this,” she says via Google translate after Moreira poses for a pic with her. 

“Yutaka is definitely a great hero to have,” Moreira tells her. “What a legend.” 

Moreira gives the thumbs up for the photo, exchanges some pleasantries with Haruka in Japanese, and walks away with a bounce in his step and broad smile on his face.  

“The fans here are amazing,” Moreira says as we depart. “How nice was that? This type of thing happens quite often here: I bump into them in the street and they stop me and they freak out. The JRA is obviously doing something right to get this kind of attention on the sport.

“When you have over 100,000 people sitting in the grandstand watching a race and you’re part of it, it means a lot of people are actually going to know who you are. Horse racing here is so freaking popular. And in a really good way. Some people in the street know who I am, but they don’t bother me. They don’t want to annoy me. So that makes them different and admirable.” 

The affection between Japanese racing fans and Moreira is clearly mutual: every time he rides a winner, fans clamour at the fences for an autograph, and he receives dozens of pieces of fan mail every week. But when we meet just before the busyness of rush hour in Shinjuku, he is coming to the end of what might be his final stint in Japan. 

Moreira departs Japan with a long list of on-track achievements and a hefty boost to his bank balance courtesy of the best per-race prize money in the world, but it is that love he has felt from fans that he will cherish most. 

“I’m enjoying every single minute,” he says. “What impresses me about the fans here is that people get there so early to the track and they wait all day: the sun could be cooking their heads, or it is snowing on them, freezing them cold, but they have still got a smile on their face. They’re just so happy to be at the races.

“That passion is contagious. It gives you so much pride and satisfaction to perform in front of them.”

We are speaking four days before the Yasuda Kinen and Moreira’s last chance on Japanese soil to re-qualify for the right to apply for a short term licence. 

Under the Japan Racing Association’s guidelines, jockeys are required to meet certain criteria to be able to qualify for three months’ worth of riding in any one calendar year: for example, finishing top three in the Hong Kong jockeys’ championship is one way to do it, or top three in Sydney or Melbourne in Australia. There are different thresholds which are meant to reflect the relative strength of each jurisdiction. 

Moreira is now based mostly in his native Brazil, where only the jockey with the most wins nation-wide qualifies for a short term licence to ride in Japan. The fact Moreira rides mostly in São Paulo and in his home city of Curitiba means that it is impossible to finish ahead of the leading riders in Rio, where there is far more racing. 

But why ride in Brazil at all? After all, on most occasions at São Paulo, let alone in the more rural Curitiba, the jockeys’ share of the first prize cheque is less than a flat riding fee for an unplaced finish in Hong Kong or Japan. It is a question many fans – and owner, trainers and officials for that matter – have asked.  

First of all, Moreira says, he didn’t necessarily expect to return to the saddle after he requested a departure from his Hong Kong Jockey Club licence in October 2022, citing a painful hip injury and mental distress. 

“When I went back home to Brazil, psychologically and physically, I wasn’t well,” he says. “I honestly didn’t think that I was going to be riding any longer.” 

Moreira underwent platelet-rich plasma treatment (PRP), the same treatment he had received in Hong Kong, but he says a slightly different approach by Brazilian doctors brought about better results. 

Stepping out of the Hong Kong system helped too, especially moving away from the physical rigours of heavy wasting twice per week. Once his body was right, Moreira says, his mind followed suit. 

“Eventually I realised that I could contribute a little bit to horse racing over there in Brazil,” he says. “A lot of people were actually showing their love to me, wanting to see me back because they knew I was not just contributing to the racing scene there, but that I could get some success and the success would bring some happiness and they were 100 per cent right.

“So once I started riding and I won some races, I felt a joy that I had lost for a little bit.” 

As we walk away from the mad concrete labyrinth that is Shinjuku Station, its three-and-a-half million daily passengers and 200 exits, and stroll towards Yoyogi Park, trains on the the Yamanote Line rattling past, Moreira mentions the other great source of joy in his life. 

In December last year, Moreira’s wife Taciana gave birth to the couple’s third child, a baby boy named Murilo Feitosa Moreria, that has put his racing life in perspective. 

Moreira flicks through baby photos on his phone, beaming, noting that the cheerful six month old’s thick-set legs already indicate a riding career isn’t likely. 

Nor is a career in the saddle in the offing for 17-year-old son Miguel, for whom a recent growth spurt has him towering over his father.

Eleven-year-old daughter Marina has taken to equestrianism and a few of Moreira’s traits are evident in her fearlessness and focus on horseback. 

“It’s been great for me to be around family again and even have them at the races with me,” Moreira says, noting that his family were rarely able to attend racing in Hong Kong, especially during the strict restrictions of COVID. 

The question needs to be asked: Retirement? Moreira refuses to be drawn further but the simple answer is not yet, and certainly not now. Not while his body, mind and that most important factor of Moreira’s  – his spirit – is in good shape. When Moreira is ‘on’, there are few that can match him for dynamism. 

Moreira’s well being, physical and mental, has translated to incredible success in Brazil: he has won 131 races at a strike rate of better than 30 per cent since returning – including seven Grade 1s – and his victory in last year’s Grade 1 Grande Premio Brasil aboard Raptors fulfilled a dream. “Actually, in a way it was beyond my wildest dreams,” he says. “Do you know how hard that race is to win for a Sao Paulo-based jockey? Nearly impossible.” 

As we reach the 40-feet tall torii gates at the start of Yoyogi Park, enter the cool space between the towering pine and poplar canopies, and walk among the sprawling trident maples below, the tranquil surrounds of Meiji Jingū Shrine seem to inspire a reflective mood in Moreira. 

But maybe that is just where Moreira is at in a career that has previously moved like a comet, burning brightly and illuminating everywhere he has been. He has never stayed anywhere too long, really, sometimes returning for a short time, only to slingshot away out of orbit and light up another part of the racing world. 

In the 21-months since he departed Hong Kong Moreira has ridden in Group 1 races on Japanese horses in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Hong Kong. He won two Group 1s and three Group 2s during two extended stays in Australia. Most recently there was the Classic win aboard Katsumi Yoshida’s filly Stellenbosch in the G1 Oka Sho.

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Previously Moreira has had little to say on how racing is run or had any sort of philosophical takes on the sport. At least not in the same way his more outspoken Hong Kong rival Zac Purton has. But at age 40, having ridden that career roller coaster and found some peace, he has some thoughts. 

His hope for world racing is that the jet-setting high standards Japanese racing has reached – not only with the quality of its horses, but the willingness of its owners and trainers to travel – is matched by other countries. 

“Everywhere Japanese horses go they are causing a massive impact and I don’t see that stopping any time soon,” Moreira says as we pause at a small concrete bridge for a photo. “I hope it’s going to encourage some other horse racing jurisdictions around the world to copy Japan and raise their games, otherwise they’ll be left in the dust.

“Sure, the Japanese prize money is great, the breeders are well-funded, they are buying great mares and they have great facilities, but there are other countries that have good funding. Let’s provide an example: Australia. They have the money, but it seems to me that it is very hard for their horses to be competitive if they travel overseas.

“The other countries can look at Japan and see what they’ve done to improve and now they need to improve. They are going to be left behind for a certain period of time, as it takes time for you to raise your game as much as Japan did in the last 25 to 30 years.

“I hope they actually do something to catch up, because when it comes to those big races, I don’t want to just see the Japanese there winning, I want to see competition. And I think some of the other countries around the world are capable of raising their games and making world racing as competitive as it deserves to be.” 

A win in the G1 Yasuda Kinen on Soul Rush would have given Moreira a chance to return to Japan, but he was only able to finish third behind Romantic Warrior. His only chance now is to team up with one of those dominant Japanese horses abroad if he wants to return and ride on the JRA circuit once again. 

Other than qualifying through a high placing in a local jockeys’ championship, or winning certain domestic JRA G1s, the other way to qualify for a JRA short term licence is to win an overseas race, or sometimes two, from an approved list drawn up by officials annually under what seems an unnecessarily complicated system. 

Moreira himself isn’t critical of the system set up to protect local jockeys – he knows the rules – but is simply determined to come back and greet those crowds under the baking sunshine or winter snow. 

“Japan racing for me is the best in the world. That’s why I wanted to be here fulltime in the past. Unfortunately, for many reasons I wasn’t able to make it work,” he says, referring to his failed bid to pass the written test to become a full time JRA jockey in 2018. 

“You know,” he adds. “I desperately want to be back here again and ride on a short term licence. And I will certainly be doing my best to make it happen.”