Spellbinding rise of 'Magic Man' Joao Moreira
Jockey Joao Moreira's climb from grim poverty to racing's pinnacle continues at Ascot tomorrow
Joao Moreira's childhood recollections often revolve around horses: A naughty kid stealing a horse during the dead of night or a horse galloping out of control, the tiny child perched perilously atop, riding bareback and clinging to a handful of mane.
The story of a stolen horse and daredevil kid usually ended with Moreira crashing into something - the ground, if he was lucky - but sometimes a drain, a tree trunk, a fence or even a speeding delivery van. From those carefree and delinquent beginnings, the jockey nicknamed "Magic Man" is now thought by many to be the best in the world.
On Tuesday, he will again be the talk of world racing when he rides Hong Kong's latest wonder horse, Able Friend, at the prestigious Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in England.
Our house was basically a tent with 10 of us living in it, you can imagine it
But there are also childhood stories that are less well known and carry a darker edge. These tales speak of Brazil's desperate poverty and give an insight into Moreira's character and what fuels his competitive drive:
The night, as a weeping eight-year-old, he was nursed on his mother's lap, too hungry to sleep.
The day he couldn't go to the funeral of a family friend because he didn't own a pair of shoes.
Or waking in the night with a flashlight, trapping and squashing rats that were scurrying around inside his slum home.
"Our house had holes in the walls that you could see right through," Moreira recalls of the three-bedroom shack he shared with his parents and seven older siblings in the southern Brazilian state of Parana, on the border with Paraguay and Argentina.
