Silvestre de Sousa

Silvestre De Sousa (born 31 December 1980 in São Francisco do Maranhão, Brazil) is a Brazilian flat racing jockey based in Britain. In 2011, he was runner-up for the British flat racing Champion Jockey title with 161 winners. In 2015 he won his first British jockeys title with 132 winners.

He was born in São Francisco do Maranhão, Maranhão. He moved to São Paulo when he was 17 years old. The youngest of ten siblings, De Sousa was 18 before he sat on a racehorse for the first time. This came after a chance meeting with a man who worked at the local Cidade Jardim racecourse, who introduced him to Fausto Durso (one of the leading jockeys in São Paulo at the time, later twice champion jockey in Macau). Durso suggested that De Sousa had the build of a jockey.

In an interview with the magazine Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder, De Sousa remembers an inauspicious beginning to his career. “I started very badly…it took me six months to get my first ride, but 16 months later I was champion apprentice and had lost my claim.” After breaking his arm in a fall, De Sousa was sidelined for six months; riding fewer after his return, he joined Irish trainer Dermot Weld. However, the move did not work out; De Sousa initially struggled to adjust to the change in environment. In a 2011 Daily Mail interview he recalled, “It was like being on another planet compared to Sao Paulo. I was 22 and I couldn’t speak a word of English”.

After two years without a ride in public, De Sousa was offered the chance to move to England and link up with Thirsk-based trainer David Nicholls. De Sousa remembers the moment he was offered the role, recalling “What did I have to lose? I thought I would try it for two weeks on the way home (to Sao Paulo), but from the beginning Mr. Nicholls started organizing my paperwork and I rode in my first race soon after”. By the end of 2006 (his first season in Britain), De Sousa had ridden 27 winners from 195 runners for a win rate of 14 percent.

With Nicholls using his son Adrian as first jockey and De Sousa getting many outside rides, de Sousa decided to freelance. In a 2010 Daily Mail interview, he described the difficult time: “That was tough at first. It would be the same if a British lad went to Brazil. I am very grateful to trainers like Geoff Harker and David O’Meara who put me up on their horses”.

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