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Racing Review
Maia Chases The Dream
2019-04-23 by Harry Troy

With a 14 win lead in the Macau Jockeys Championship, Brazilian Ruan Maia looks the best of good things to take out his second successive Macau title. Maia who leads on 45 victories is 14 wins ahead of his nearest rival Luis Corrales, with another five wins back to Peter Ho in third spot on 26 winners.

With last Saturday and Sundays race meetings both postponed due to the severe rainstorms that deluged Macau, Hong Kong and parts of Southern China, there remains a total of 27 racedays left for the season.

Doing the math’s Luis Corrales a former four times Macau Champion, would need to ride four winners a month from here to the end of the season; and Maia ride none at all, to just to get Corrales home with a two win margin. Maia as you would expect is in great demand by owners and trainers, and on average at least fifty percent of his rides raceday run favorite; with the remainder of them well supported in the market mostly in the second and third line of favoritism. He is already on target to surpass his tally of 60 winners from last season when he was crowned Champion jockey, being one month ahead in his win tally compared to this time last year. Add to that the fact that his strike rate of a 22% winning rate and 54% for a place is slightly up on last season; a second Macau Championship looks simply a foregone conclusion.

Maia is following in the footsteps of other Brazilian jockeys who have stamped themselves as champion riders worldwide. The likes of Joao Moreira, Silvestre de Souza and Manoel Nunes, who have all gone on to be multiple champions in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Macau.

Ruan Maia’s story mirrors that of the above names in that his beginnings as a jockey were almost identical to them. Born in the seaside city of Paranagua, Maia grew up on a small farm where he learned to ride at a very young age.

“In my family there are four children. My parents had a small place and had some horses so it was natural for me to ride. Like most families in Brazil it’s a struggle to survive, we were not a wealthy family and the life was very simple.” Maia said.

None of Maia’s family had ever been interested in horse racing, and it was just by chance that a racehorse owner suggested he might like to try life as a jockey.

“I was very small and he knew that I had been riding since I was a kid so he took me to the races at Curitiba. I liked it very much and I started then with the Jockey Club in Curitiba. I stayed three months before I was accepted into the famous Sao Paulo Apprentice School; I was only 17 years old then.”

“It was a very hard school and you have to be tough to survive it, but it makes you strong and determined. If you are not successful and you cannot get your required winners after two years, you are out of there.”

Sao Paulo has one the toughest graduation marks of any Apprentice Academy in the world. If an apprentice does not get the required 100 winners in the two years allowed then he does not graduate.

After graduating from the Sao Paulo Academy Maia stayed at the track for ten years winning 360 races including four Group 1 winners, two groups 2’s and three Group 3 victories. Keen to capitalize on the success of other Brazilian jockeys’ in Asia, Maia decided to follow the path set by jockeys like Eurico Rosa Da Silva, Manoel Nunes, Fausto Durso and Joao Moreira.

Maia arrived in Macau in December 2016 and like those who came before him he started right from scratch. There was no stable contract, no promise of rides, just a free lance jockeys’ license coupled with a steely determination and hunger to succeed. It took Maia 19 rides before he booted home his first winner in Macau on God Get People for trainer Stanley Chin. However it was still tough going from there; and it wasn’t until three months later in March 2017 that Maia started making people sit up and take notice, as the winners started rolling in.

Like most of the Brazilian riders we’ve seen Maia is a superb horseman. On two occasions in Macau he has pulled off something that is best described as nothing short of a miracle to win the race. The first was on Alan Tam’s 2/1 favorite Cheerful Companion in April 2017. Approaching the home turn his saddle slipped abruptly to the near side leaving Maia with his right foot perched high on the horses wither and his left foot caught in the stirrup dangling down near the horses girth. Remaining as cool as ever Maia quickly untangled his right foot and then proceed to ride bareback, pulling the whip and storming down the outside to snatch victory right on the line.

The second occasion was just a few months after on August 17 and again on another favorite in the K H Leong trained Pearl Green. Maia was following the well fancied Master Of Cheers in the run who shifted out in front of him abruptly and he clipped that horses heels. Pearl Green dipped badly and was lucky to stay on his feet; Maia lost both irons but never lost his cool, and again riding bareback picked the horse up and drove him between runners, even managing to switch the whip from right to left hand before hitting the line for a strong win.

Maia and his wife Erica Calheiros have settled in well to the Macau racing scene and have fallen in love with the lifestyle in the former Portuguese colony.

“We really love Macau it’s such a lovely safe place; the people are just great and I’m very grateful to the owners and trainers for the opportunity they give me. I just want to ride more winners and improve myself.

With 136 winners in Macau in just over two years, Maia dominates the riding ranks in the enclave. As for the future 30 year old is aiming to broaden his horizons and has aspirations later to ride in other International venues around the world.

“It’s always been my dream to ride in some of the big racing centres like Hong Kong and Singapore and other places like that.”

But for now it’s business as usual for the natural lightweight, as he remains fully focused on his second Macau Jockeys’ Championship.


Ruan Maia

Cheerful Companion

Maia on Pearl Green

Only Pearl - Ruan Maia


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