The astonishing journey from a ranch in Brazil to a rising star in Britain

It is not just Brazil’s footballers who are making an impact in Britain. Some of their horsemen have come to the fore of late.

There is three-time champion jockey Silvestre de Sousa. There is Robson Aguiar, the former Ballydoyle work-rider who is making a big splash consigning horses at breeze-up sales. And there’s Ivan Furtado, who saddled his first Group-race winner at the recent St Leger meeting at Doncaster.

There’s no chance of mistaking the 41-year-old Furtado for a footballer. He walks like a cowboy in a western; his legs are so bowed that they appear wrapped around an invisible barrel. That has everything to do with his upbringing, riding with the ranch hands on his family’s farm in southern Brazil near the border with Argentina.