I promised myself I wouldn’t blog about Joao Moreira for a while – maybe not for a few weeks at least.

Maybe a half-season review on how he is going to ride even more winners than last season, or perhaps he might force my hand with a big single-day haul.

But then the Brazilian goes and does something so utterly, mind-bendingly stupendous that it compels one to provide written record of the event.

And to think, he didn’t even win the race – he just made his whip look like a magic wand.

Moreira’s whip-twirling antics on Sun Jewellery had racing Twitterland in meltdown on Saturday, the act one of the more astonishing things seen on a racecourse for a while.

Stewards deduced there was eight-tenths of a second between when the whip left Moreira’s right hand and when he regained it with his left – all the while, travelling at around 65 kilometres an hour

First of all, it was a mistake by Moreira. His whip slipped from his hand. If he did mean to do it, he is an alien with powers beyond normal human capabilities, which might be true and it is yet to be ruled out.

So there was a certain amount – OK, a lot – of luck involved.

The trajectory of the stick after it slipped from Moreira’s grasp was rather fortuitous – it flew right into his path – but there is still the not-too-small matter of catching it again, while riding full speed on a thoroughbred, with the opposite hand switching hands on the reins, and maintaining your rhythm like nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

Moreira even had the audacity to give Sun Jewellery another slap on the shoulder as he followed through after the catch in one motion.

Even Moreira admitted he probably couldn’t do it again, even if he tried.

“And even if I wasn’t on a horse!” he later joked.

“I just saw the whip flying above me and I thought, ‘Well, I better get it back and catch it’ – and luckily I did.”

It was as good a catch as any slips fieldsman could pull off in cricket, or like a baseball shortstop plucking a laser-driven line drive out of midair.

Sometimes, we forget the range of skills jockeys need and we take them for granted. It’s a lot more than just riding a horse – they are athletes and sportsmen in the truest sense of the words.

Balance, extreme core strength, endurance, the aerobic capacity of a long distance runner, plus the less quantifiable qualities of courage and bravery. And, as we saw on Saturday, insane reflexes.

Unless [Joao] Moreira is outed as an alien and banned from human competition, he is on track to ride far more winners than last season

Stewards, who seemed as much in awe as anyone else as they wheeled back through the footage again and again, deduced there was eight-tenths of a second between when the whip left Moreira’s right hand and when he regained it with his left – all the while, travelling at around 65 kilometres an hour.

Go out in your car now with a whip of some type – because we know you’ve got one lying around – drive down the street at 65 kilometres an hour, toss your whip in the air with a double flip and catch it again.

Or, for an added element of realism, get someone else to drive, perch yourself on top of the car moving at that speed on a bumpy road, get the driver to throw some random swerves in, and do it from there – and remember, right to left hand.

On second thoughts, better not. The police will not be amused.

In 2013, amateur jumps jockey Sam Waley-Cohen did something similar – to Moreira, that is, not riding on the roof of a car – when he reached behind his back to retrieve his stick in a race. It’s hard to argue Moreira’s was better, because they were both freakish.

If Moreira hadn’t caught it, would he have resorted to less than legal methods to get another?

There is a long history of whip stealing in races. Even the great Lester Piggott couldn’t help himself in the 1979 Grand Prix de Deauville when he snatched the whip from rival Alain Lequeux.

In September at Philadelphia Park’s Parx Racing, jockey Pierre Hernandez Ortega pinched the whip out of Angel Castillo’s hand – although Castillo was going nowhere fast, and it must be said he didn’t put up much of a fight.

Moreira doesn’t need much help, so he probably wouldn’t be tempted.

So that blog I promised myself I wouldn’t write yet, I might as well provide a taste of what it will be about, as it is obvious – that unless Moreira is outed as an alien and banned from human competition, he is on track to ride far more winners than last season.

He has 43 wins from 19 meetings – winning at nearly one in four races. In a neat coincidence, Moreira has the same number of winners as his next three rivals in the jockeys’ championship combined – Douglas Whyte (15 wins), Brett Prebble (15) and Zac Purton (13) – all humans and, even more disappointingly, none of whom have performed whip-twirling tricks this season.

At the same stage last season Moreira had 26 wins and went on to ride 145. At this rate, 175 isn’t a ludicrous suggestion.

Maybe Moreira did mean that whip trick, and it’s just a sign he is getting bored and bringing an added degree of difficulty to proceedings to keep himself, and us, entertained.

Let’s see if he starts using his new-found party trick to change whips hands more efficiently, or incorporates it as a trademark victory salute when he crosses the line three or four lengths in front on Able Friend in the Jockey Club Mile on Saturday.

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