RACING NEWS:KIEREN FALLON is confident he can be crowned champion jockey at least one more time before his riding career is over as he looks forward to his return to the saddle later this year.
The six-times champion jockey has been on the sidelines since he was given a worldwide 18-month suspension for testing positive for a banned substance after a race at Deauville in August 2007.
Fallon, who only last week started riding out on the gallops in Newmarket, will be allowed to resume race-riding on September 4th and feels he will come back a better jockey than ever before.
“Physically and mentally for the first time in a long time I feel great,” Fallon said in an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“I’m relaxed, the cloud is gone and I’m just really looking forward to getting back.
“I’ve got a few months to go, but I think it will do me the world of good. I know I’ll be a lot fitter when I get back riding than I ever was. It’s just a matter of time now before I can get back on and see if I can prove myself again, get the support of trainers and their confidence back and kick on from there.”
Fallon discovered last November he would not face any further action from the British Horseracing Authority in relation to the 2007 Old Bailey trial, which ended in the jockey and five other individuals being found not guilty to all charges of alleged race-fixing.
The 44-year-old rider admits the trial took a lot out of him and he felt the pressures surrounding the case contributed to his downfall.
“It has been difficult and the worst part of it was it went on for years and years. I think it was nearly four years before I got to court,” Fallon continued.
“If there is anything there to clog your mind, you are going to make decisions that you wouldn’t normally do.
“You can’t concentrate, your mind is elsewhere and you are just waiting for it all to end – but onwards and upwards. The feel from a horse wasn’t there but it seems to be back and we’ll see come September.
“For 15 to 20 years I’ve been racing round the country like a lunatic, never getting a break, never taking a holiday.
“Towards my last couple of years, even winning the big races, I wasn’t getting the kick out of it that I should have been. But I’ve had plenty of time off now and I’m keen to get back.”
Fallon hopes to silence the doubters by doing what he does best – riding winners.
“It’s like riding a bike – you never forget how to do it. I know all the tracks here backwards,” he continued.
“I’ll re-establish myself when I get on the track by riding winners and if you ride winners, trainers want to use you. People can look at me whatever way they like, it won’t bother me. Once I get on the track and I start to prove myself, they might change their mind.
“I would love to get back riding 200 winners. I’ve done it three or four times on the trot and I found it easy. If I can get back riding that many winners in a season, I am going to be there with a shot of winning another championship, which I think I’m capable of.
“If I can’t ride 200 winners then I’ll be on the downslope.
“I’ll just filter in and hopefully before September there will be an owner or a trainer, someone that will want to use me as a jockey for a stable.”
Fallon is still under the watchful eye of the BHA. “I get tested twice a week in Newmarket, then there is a random test and counselling that has to be done, so I am working with them,” said Fallon.
“I’ve always liked a challenge and I set my targets high. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster and it took a couple of months to sink in that it was all over.
“A lot of it was my own doing and I’m getting on now, but if I get a good five years, one or two championships and a couple of Classic winners would be nice.”
- Aidan O’Brien’s Roman Empress is the subject of a gamble for the Epsom Oaks ahead of her scheduled reappearance this weekend. The daughter of Sadler’s Wells, a half-sister to Derby runner-up The Great Gatsby, finished third in a Navan maiden on her sole racecourse start last term.
She is among the entries for the Irish Stallion Farms European Breeders Fund Fillies Maiden at Leopardstown on Sunday.
William Hill have slashed her price for the Epsom Classic to 16 to 1 from 40 to 1 after sustained support, Sky Bet are 16 to 1 from 25 to 1 and Stan James 16 to 1 from 33 to 1.
Hills spokesman Tony Kenny said: “We heard a few whispers last year that Roman Empress could be Ballydoyle’s number one for the Oaks and while she didn’t really sparkle on her debut last season, the money seems to suggest that she’s come on leaps and bounds over the winter.”
