Fernando Maria de Lourdes SOARES [????-????]
Son of the Macanese businessman Adao Maria de Lourdes Soares, F.M.L. Soares joined the family firm of Soares & Co. but was perhaps best known as a popular young jockey in the 1920s. I have no idea if he is the same Soares, mentioned in R.E. Jones’s war diary of 15 January 1944 as possibly having been executed. I don’t think he is the same as “Ginger” Soares, who was a lawyer. F.M.L. Soares figures in my family history as the jockey who rode the first winner belonging to my grandfather (racing name “Mr Towers”) and in fact the first China pony that my grandfather owned.