Cracking? Luca Cumani and Kieren Fallon
With Luca Cumani’s principal owner using other jockeys, Kieren Fallon has had something of a wake up call. He speaks openly to The Guardian’s Chris Cook about the challenges ahead.
Something about Salisbury racecourse induces torpor, possibly the sense that little has changed there since the end of rationing, and at 48 years old Kieren Fallon is vulnerable to its soporific qualities. Having arrived there in plenty of time for a single ride, he settles on a bench outside the weighing room in the manner of a much older man claiming his spot for the afternoon.
“I’ve got lazy, so I have, for the first time in my life,” he drawls, smiling, self-mocking. “I don’t think it’s only me. We don’t have the same atmosphere at the races any more, you know what I mean? There’s no excitement, no buzz … now that Frankel has gone, I think.”
But before racing’s many PR ninjas can swoop from the sky and throw a sack over his heretical head, the jockey concedes that yes, in fact, this feeling really might be his alone. The problem, apparently, is that he so rarely rides morning work on the gallops these days.
It might be thought that not having to roll out of bed at 6am would be one of the first perks a top-class jockey would claim, particularly one who has been British champion six times, the winner of three Derbys and 80 other European Group Ones. But Fallon says he loves it and goes further, suggesting a renewed commitment to dawn exercise might be his only way of eking another few years from his career.
Some feel he may be hard-pressed to manage that in any case. Having held all the big jobs with Henry Cecil (pre-knighthood), Sir Michael Stoute and Aidan O’Brien, he has been mostly reliant on the employment of Luca Cumani in recent seasons. Cumani remains supportive but the association seems to be loosening and the trainer’s principal owner, Sheikh Obaid, now insists on using other riders.
In The News. Fallon has had his ups and downs
Fallon is philosophical about the Sheikh’s desire to look elsewhere, likening it to his recent decision to switch agents. “Things like that happen … You have to change something if it’s not working, you try something else, you don’t just sit there and dwell. You try and find somebody that’ll change it, try and rekindle. I don’t ride out for Luca any more, I don’t ride many of his horses [in races].”
The consequence is that he is stuck on 46 winners for 2013, having hit 154 two years ago. Aside from seasons interrupted by injury, bans or the suspension of his licence he has not hit such a low total in 19 years, back in the days before he moved south from Lynda Ramsden’s yard in Yorkshire. But, even as he shoots the breeze at sleepy Salisbury, Fallon does not seem content to accept a gentle slide down the jockeys’ table.
“What I need to do is start riding out for somebody else. If you’re up in the morning, up early, on the ball, going racing, you’re not in the same frame of mind. I think that’s basically what’s been happening with me, you know.
“But I want to stay riding and get another few years if I can, because I enjoy racing. I love riding, I love competition. With not riding out, I think that’s what’s letting me down at the moment.
“I ride out for Brian [Meehan] on a Thursday and I used to ride out for Cumani on Wednesdays and Saturdays. And before that, I used to ride out for Stoutey every day.
Tough Customer. Fallon says he is not past riding winners
“If you don’t ride out every day, you get into a bit of a rut and I don’t think you’re as sharp … When you get up early in the morning, you’re sharp and that’s what I’m going to start doing. I think I’ll start doing that next week. I’ll try and find somebody really that wants me to ride out.”
There should be plenty of candidates; he had six rides at Newbury on Friday and has another six on Saturday, supplied by a total of eight different trainers, none of them Cumani. But before he throws himself into a new work regime he will treat himself to a trip to Croke Park on Sunday to cheer on his native Clare against Limerick in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final.
Will he start out again as a trainer, when the evil day comes that ends his riding career? “I would like to,” he says, adding with wry understatement, “but my PR isn’t great and I think, to be a trainer, that’s one of the most important things. But you never know. It would have to be up north.”
Then he waves away such idle dreams. There is riding to be done. “I feel better now than I’ve ever felt. I’ve trashed me body all my life and I’m only starting to look after myself now.
“But anyway, I’ve enjoyed life, I’ve had a great career and I’m hoping to continue it.”
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