Champion's form: the troubled times of Kieren Fallon

In the eye of the current media storm is the six-times champion falt jockey Kieren Fallon, a man who does peaks and troughs in…

In the eye of the current media storm is the six-times champion falt jockey Kieren Fallon, a man who does peaks and troughs in a way that no rider probably has ever had to before. Certainly he inspires emotions from the very opposite ends of the spectrum.

Fallon's press veers alarmingly from the sort of tongue-bath that makes you want to leave the room or vitriol that would have you believe he is the devil incarnate. The ironic part of this week was that a year which travelled from an Oaks-Derby double to a disrepute charge and tabloid exposure had looked like finally settling down. But with Fallon that would be too much like normality.

This is the man whose reaction to a racecourse incident with another jockey in 1994 was to haul him off his horse. The result was a six-month ban that Fallon used to mould the talent that got him a top job with Henry Cecil, lose it in yet another tabloid expose, and then fight back to secure the job as No.1 jockey to the Queen's trainer, Sir Michael Stoute.

How he reacts to this latest development will be supremely interesting. Footage of him dashing into the back of the jockeys room or fleeing out of airports may show a man in defiant control but Fallon has admitted in the past how controversy can get to him.

READ MORE

After the Ballinger Ridge affair in March, when he got a 21 day ban for stopping riding too soon in a race, Fallon admitted the incident had affected his riding. There is also no denying that despite the hand-wringing and breat-thumping of the past few days, plenty of people within racing will feel nothing but sympathy for the man.