Champion jockey Joao Moreira was back in the winning groove in Singapore on Friday night after a successful hit-and-run raid to Perth last weekend.

Moreira won the Kailis Jockeys’ Championship on the Winterbottom Stakes day at Ascot and the Perth connection continued when he piloted Major Step to win Race 2 at Kranji last night.  It helped Moreira equal Saimee Jumaat’s record of 115 wins for a season on the Malaysian circuit.

Major Step (3g Brocco – Padmini by Palace Music) was bred and sold by Durham Lodge for $11,000 at the 2009 Perth Magic Millions autumn yearling sale.  He is a younger half-brother to the Durham bred Singapore winner Jeram Frankie (Blackfriars).

Major Step bolted in by seven lengths when racing second-up over 1000m.  “I could tell he had improved a lot when I worked this week,” Moreira said.   “On that win, I think he should win more races.”

His sire Brocco (Kris S.) won the 1993 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and 2004 Santa Anita Derby before arriving in the Hunter Valley.  Flying Newmarket Hcp winner Miss Pennymoney was the best of his southern stock, however, a poor overall strike-rate and the emergence of his G1 winning filly Jostle in the USA curtailed a shuttling career after six years.

Durham Lodge brought him a back to Australia in 2005 and he covered another five ever-diminishing books before a further transfer to Quanah Park earlier this year.