The turf
Bad boy makes good
Robin Oakley
The racing world has affected to be much surprised that Hemy Cecil, Eng- land's most successful trainer, should have chosen Kieren Fallon, the hot-headed tad boy', as his stable jockey at Warren Place next season. It has created the sort of con- sternation that Tony Blair might by appointing Denis Skinner Shadow Chancel- lor or the Queen by opting for Max Clif- ford as the next press secretary at the Palace.
The nephew of Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, training in Sir Noel Murless's old yard, Cecil in some ways personifies the racing Establishment. But what those now flutter- ing their fans forget is that it takes real determination as well as ability to collect as many trainer's titles and as many top races as he has done. This is a man dedicated to winning, and all the more so since his falling out with the Maktoums made him determined this season to show that he was as good as ever without their super-horse- power.
I wrote earlier this year that if I had to choose a jockey to ride the horse carrying my last fiver than it would be Kieren Fal- lon, and Cecil has clearly recognised a fel- low spirit in the will-to-win department. Together, they could produce a formidable racing chemistry.
Henry Cecil has been training English Classic winners since Bolkonski (ridden by Franco Dettori senior) took the 2,000 Guineas in 1975, at a time when the accomplished Luca Cumani was Cecil's assistant. Those who have preceded Kieren Fallon as stable jockey include Lester Pig- gott, who was forced to part ways with the stable when the volcanic Daniel Wilden- stein ruled, in one of his periodic erup- tions, that Lester would never ride a horse of his again. There was the silky smooth Joe Mercer, the brilliant young American Steve Cauthen, and, at one stage, that underrated horseman Greville Starkey. To those who wonder how Cecil will cOPe with the wilder side of his new acqui- sition, one experience with Starkey surely offers a clue. The trainer, jockey and owner Lord Dunraven once went to the Mirabelle to celebrate after winning a big race at Deauville with the filly Katie Cecil. Gre- vine Starkey, who had been wasting hard to take the mount, was somewhat affected by the fine wine and began to perform his cel- ebrated imitation of a barking dog. Noting that the other diners appeared a touch put out by this, Cecil handled it with aplomb. As the bill was requested he looped his nap- kin round Starkey's neck and led the jockey, on all fours and still barking, to the door.
(My favourite maitre d' once told me of how he had coped at a famous establish- ment when a tart and the rich American who had brought her in as a prelude to other pleasures both became noisily drunk, He had the American called to the phone and occupied by a garbled conversation. The young lady was despatched meanwhile in a rapidly hailed taxi, £25 pressed into her hand with a message that she was to meet her companion at the Ritz. When the American reappeared he was told that madam had been taken ill and had left. On his departure in turn the manse d' announced to the rest of the clientele, 'Shall we say brandies all round, gentle- men?' Style is everything sometimes.)
But to return to racing. What raises eye- brows over the Fallon appointment is that he has been notorious for the shortness of his fuse and the regularity of his clashes with racing's authorities. The most cele- brated occasion, of course, was the six- month ban he received for pulling fellow jockey Stuart Webster from his mount after the finish of a race at Beverley in 1994. Their weighing-room exchanges afterwards, it seems, were not confined to the verbal. After another fracas, when he received an eight-day ban for barging through a gap that was not there at Haydock at the end of the last season, it cost Fallon the chance of his first century of winners and the peeved jockey, feeling himself a marked man, threatened to return to Ireland for good.
Even this season there was trouble when Fallon failed to turn up for a Jockey Club inquiry after riding when his medical book proclaimed him to be 'unwell'. But the jockey himself reckons that at 31 he has now settled down. He was sensible enough to spend his six months' suspension not sulking at home but honing his skills by work-riding in California.
His riding record attached to Lynda Ramsden's Yorkshire stable speaks for itself. His Royal Ascot wins on Dazzle for Michael Stoute and Yeast for William Haggas show that he can handle the big occasions. His 'on air' assessment of last week's Ebor at York for Channel 4, sug-
gesting the 17-2 shot Clerkenwell as the likely winner, underlined his judgment. And this season he is already past the 100- winner mark even without the benefit of riding for a hundred horse power stable.
It is worth remembering that Joe Mercer, Steve Cauthen and Lester Piggott all won the jockey's title while riding for Cecil, and I believe that Ladbroke's opening offer of 4-1 against Fallon winning the title next season is a price worth taking, if you can still get it.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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