The toughest part of Joao Moreira’s life isn’t riding horses: he is pretty good at that, if you hadn’t noticed. If only it was that simple.
The trickiest aspect of riding in Hong Kong for the Brazilian seems to be choosing which horse to ride – and not just which horse is going to win a given race. Again, that can be the easy part.
The “spoilt for choice” issues were exemplified on Sunday when Moreira pulled the wrong rein and chose to ride Amazing Kids over Packing Pins, and to a lesser extent when he picked Amazing Kids’ stablemate So Fast over Brilliant Dream.
Both Moreira mounts were beaten on their merits by the horses he had ridden to recent wins and then spurned, and not for the first time this season some experts were second guessing the Magic Man’s judgment.
Moreira had won four straight on Packing Pins, but felt there was more upside with Amazing Kids.
“I was looking at the age of the horses, their options for the future, and I thought Amazing Kids would have more options,” Moreira told Racing To Win before the event, stressing that he didn’t think there was much between the two.
On raceday there were three lengths between them in favour of Packing Pins, who looks a Group One miler in the making, and it left Amazing Kids looking less like the Hong Kong Classic Mile hopeful many had pegged.
Of course, we are all experts now. A phenomenal 21 wins from 10 meetings at which he has ridden this season and a record 145 winners last term tells you Moreira is making plenty of right decisions.
But jeez, we’ve got to pick on him for something – if only to keep pace with the Sydney turncoats who jumped off the Brazilian’s bandwagon earlier this year after a poor return at The Championships.
Moreira certainly isn’t the first and won’t be the last top jockey to choose “option 2” only to have “option 1” win a big race.
Roy Higgins famously chose to ride Salamander over Bart Cummings-trained Hyperno in the 1979 Melbourne Cup, only to have Hyperno edge him out in Australia’s biggest race.
In this year’s BMW Hong Kong Derby even Douglas Whyte, credited with being one of the best judges of form and horse flesh in the history of racing here, got one wrong when he gave up the ride on eventual winner Luger in favour of Giant Treasure.
Of course, when we say “wrong”, we mean wrong based on the most basic metric – who won – but these decisions are made with myriad factors to consider.
We blogged about Whyte’s decision in the lead-up to the Derby and how on face value, the question of “which horse is the most likely winner?” was almost secondary.
In the end the 13-time champion went with loyalty for a billionaire owner, Pan Sutong, and next Sunday Whyte will regain the ride on Longines Hong Kong Sprint contender Gold-Fun. Maybe he will be on Consort if that high-priced import makes his way to next year’s classic.
The same politics and perceived loyalties are at play with Moreira and he has admitted the sensitivities of the Hong Kong racing scene have been difficult to manage.
It's easy to forget Moreira has been been in Hong Kong on a full-time basis for two years this week – ridiculous really, given the way he has ridden rampant over the the opposition and simultaneously destroyed the algorithms of professional punters everywhere.
If there is a weak point in Moreira’s game, though, it might just be getting his head around these choices – and don’t forget he is flying solo, without a jockey manager, for the first time ever.
Working out who is better between Amazing Kids or Packing Pins is just like hundreds of decisions Moreira will have to make this season, and even if the stakes were higher, it must be just as difficult to work out who is “less terrible” when there are four or five unreliable goats on offer in your typical Class Five. He might as well spin a wheel.
A quick aside: the Amazing Kids v Packing Pins clash did provide an interesting case study of Moreira’s obviously profound, but ultimate unquantifiable, effect on betting markets.
Packing Pins had started favourite at his last four starts at 1.8, 1.6, 2.3 and 1.8, all convincing victories. Moreira jumps off, some unknown named Zac Purton jumps on and Packing Pins is 3.8 and Amazing Kids starts 1.7.
Of course, there were a couple of other factors – Amazing Kids was carrying more weight than ever, was zero from three at 1,400m previously and all-up support ensured plenty of money was going onto the horse. Still, if Moreira rides Packing Pins? Most we polled today agree he would have started favourite.
It was a reminder not to place too much faith in a jockey’s decision. It’s rarely as simple as it seems. Mondays and Thursdays, when the bookings for the following meeting are made, can be messy affairs where confusion can reign supreme.
Now, as the big races loom, the stakes get higher as Moreira’s choices take on more gravity.
He might even get the chance to get back on Packing Pins next start in the Group Two Oriental Watch Sha Tin Trophy, as the five-year-old will be carrying a weight that Purton cannot make. Yet that would mean giving up the chance to ride Contentment, another potential Group One winner.
Whichever horse he chooses there, he would likely have to give up come the Jockey Club Mile anyway when Able Friend returns to his best trip and probably renders all other considerations meaningless.
That not only means missing Packing Pins and Contentment, but also a fresh Designs On Rome – although he would probably get that ride back for his main target, the Longines Hong Kong Cup.
In racing, as in life, there is a price to pay for everything. Choose to ride horse A, and you have upset the owner of horse B, while the trainer of horse C thinks that you are favouring the trainer of horse A, who he hates because of a stable transfer five years ago. It goes on.
Last season, Moreira surprisingly identified people skills as Purton’s best asset as a jockey. “First of all, a great jockey needs to be polite,” he told SCMP.
He may be right. Maybe being polite doesn’t help with sitting down to study race form, but it sure helps when picking up the phone to ask for a ride back.
