In the rural darkness, urgent whispers float through the gloom. A lazy neigh drifts across the open night air from the resting herd, the hooves shuffle at the sound of approaching feet. Small, nimble boys climb aboard, chirruping softly with excitement while a waiting accomplice holds an opened gate. In seconds, the horses are gone in a restrained, unheard canter.
And The Magic Man begins.
Joao Moreira - who begins his Hong Kong career today at Happy Valley - looks well-practised at telling how he began riding without the complications of saddles or stirrups in the agricultural heartland of Parana, 600 kilometres west of Brazil's megatropolis, Sao Paulo.
"I was a very naughty boy. People used horses for work during the day, and they would leave them overnight in a paddock to graze and to rest for the next day," he says. "I was 10 years old and we used to steal them and ride all night."
But Moreira's first "ride" was earlier - he has memories of his mother placing him on a horse's back during a visit to his grandfather's dairy farm at three - but it is the years of bareback "night rustling" that he credits with his outstanding balance.
"I did that until I was 14. My brother knew I was going to get into trouble, so he got me a job where he worked, in a place making things from wood," Moreira recalls. "The manager knew all my stories and said if I really loved horses I should be a jockey."
There followed pledges of help only to be followed by disappointment. Moreira left work to take a vacancy in the local jockey school only to be passed over at the last minute. So he started with a local trainer, working free in exchange for experience.
"After six months, I went to tell him I was quitting, but he didn't let me talk, he just handed me a ticket to Sao Paulo to see his best horse run in the big cup," Moreira says. "I went and met some people while I was there, including a guy called Emerson Cruz. He said forget Parana, try for a real future with the Sao Paulo academy and helped get my name on the list."
A month later, Moreira bid his family goodbye as Cruz took him to enrol in Sao Paulo, but it wasn't plain sailing.
"To stay in the academy, you have to ride six winners in your first six months and 25 in the next six," Moreira says.
"I really struggled. I had no experience and they put me in races after just one barrier trial, against a lot of experienced jockeys who were always going to play games with me." Moreira did well after 2½ months to win his first race - only to be disqualified for interference. "Then I won another one and got disqualified again," Moreira says. "One guy called me and said, 'You're not born for this, look for another job'."
The voice telling young Moreira to give his dream away was Ivan Quintana - a former riding great who was by then a leading trainer. "Later, he saw I wasn't going to give up. He said, 'Well, if you're not going to give up, you're going to have to listen to me', and he started teaching me what I was doing wrong and how I should do it right," recalls Moreira. "He ended up my biggest support in life, even after he had been so rude to me at first. Soon, people started to compare my style with his. Eventually I became his stable jockey."
That full circle was something Moreira also completed on his final night at Kranji, winning six races, including one on Dragonfly, owned by ailing ex-trainer Douglas Dragon, who had been instrumental in his move to Singapore.
His career on the rise at home, Moreira had been advised to look overseas to make his name and fortune. "I said I would love to, but didn't know how. A trainer, who overheard this, got a call that same day from Eurico da Silva, a Brazilian riding in Singapore," Moreira recalls. "The trainer asked what he was up to and Da Silva said he was moving to Canada. Then the trainer said, 'Maybe you can recommend Joao to replace you'. One month later, Eurico rang me and said he had spoken to his trainer, Douglas Dragon, and he would support me. I didn't speak English when I got there, but soon learned to communicate. Maybe now I have to learn Chinese."
Moreira estimates he has ridden in "maybe 17 or 18 countries", but one foreign posting didn't work out: "I went to France in 2005, riding for a big stable. It was very hard because I could not speak French. I returned home but I don't regret it because I did some really good things. For the first time - Singapore was the second - I won eight races in one day, and I got on a champion horse, Eu Tambem."
Moreira says the standard of Brazilian riders is overlooked, even though countryman Jorge Ricardo holds the world record for most winners - he passed 12,000 in May - and the most championships - 25 straight in Brazil plus two more in Argentina.
Singapore settled Moreira's reputation as world class and perhaps Hong Kong will mirror the four years of dominance there, perhaps he will find it tougher, but Moreira seems happy with his journey.
"To be where I am, from where I came from, riding like a real cowboy - where I'm from, they have races without saddles even. A different world," he smiles.
