Happy Lucky Dragon Win | Moreira's a champion, and nothing can slow Joao

Joao Moreira is too good. They say the mark of a great sportsman is when they have to change the rules of the game they play because of them – think Donald Bradman and cricket, Walter Lindrum and billiards, and so on. So when do the Jockey Club start giving Moreira two pounds extra just to slow him down?

As alluded to in colleague Alan Aitken’s On The Rails column last week, local jockeys losing a two pound weight allowance after 250 winners was the least of their worries in the end. The arrival of Moreira, who weighs in at 113 pounds or perhaps even less, has also eroded the one advantage the local lads had when trying to counter the overseas invasion – being able to ride lightweight chances. The presence of top class featherweights Karis Teetan and Mirco Demuro isn’t helping much either.

The Jockey Club licensing committee has long desired diversity within the jockey roster, to break the Australian/South African stranglehold, and the current crop certainly ticks that box – although a top class Englishman wouldn’t go astray.

A list of the nationalities of winning jockeys reads like a FIFA World Cup winners – if Australia, China, South Africa or Ireland ever had a chance of winning that gong. Here’s the nationality of the last 18 winning jockeys, that is, those who won at the last two meetings: Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Brazil, Brazil, Brazil, China, France, Brazil, France, Italy, Brazil, Italy, South Africa, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Italy.

Two things jump out immediately – China, one winner, and Brazil, seven winners, and that’s one guy – that man Moreira. But even Brazil’s Samba Boys couldn’t match a strike rate of seven from 18, and even though it is not a serious suggestion that Moreira be given two pounds extra to carry, he is certainly causing mayhem, and not just for his rival jockeys.

Moreira’s strike rate is so high he is forcing professional punters to reconfigure their systems, and his effect on betting markets seems astounding. There is no way of quantifying how much effect a single jockey can have on the odds of the horse he is riding – that is, how much shorter a Moreira mount is because he is on board, compared to the price it would be if an average jockey rode it?