Racing: Fallon in demand despite Cecil split

Glorious Goodwood: The sacking of the champion jockey overshadows the meeting for all except his successor

KIEREN FALLON, the champion jockey, and Henry Cecil, Britain's pre-eminent trainer, were on speaking terms at Glorious Goodwood yesterday. It is an outwardly amicable situation which will terminate on Sunday.

Fallon has been sacked as the retained jockey at Warren Place, Cecil's Newmarket stronghold, in the wake of sexual allegations made against the trainer's wife in a Sunday newspaper.

It had been reported that Natalie Cecil, who is said to be recovering from stress in the Priory Clinic at Roehampton, had sex with a leading jockey in a shower. It was claimed she was besotted by the rider and "ended up in a hotel room with him after a racecourse meeting last month". It was further alleged that he broke off their relationship after it gained wider circulation.

Just over 48 hours after the report, Fallon was on his way. When the Irishman rides Endorsement in the Prix de Pomone at Deauville on Sunday it will signal the end. The champion's most important link to winners will be severed.

The separation brings to an end the most remarkable union in British racing. When Cecil announced in August of 1996 that Fallon would be his stable jockey for the following season, it was a decision greeted with much scepticism. Both men were professionally successful in their own right, but privately there was, and is, no comparison.

Cecil is from the upper classes, a flamboyant figure at the racecourse in loafers and extravagant ties who enjoys a verbal joust with the press. The reserved Fallon is a plasterer's son from Co. Clare, a man who has risen to the top despite regular collisions with authority. It was a coupling which many said had a limited shelf life, and those predictions looked to have found early vindication when Fallon erred on Bosra Sham, one of Cecil's best ever horses, in the 1997 Eclipse Stakes at Sandown.

The partnership survived that disappointment and the irony now is that they were enjoying their sweetest period yet. Three of the four Classics run this year have seen the family ensign fluttering above Warren Place. Wince took the 1,000 Guineas and then there was dual success at Epsom with Ramruma's Oaks and Oath in the Derby.

In tandem they have won 10 Group One events and Fallon has been champion jockey for the last two seasons, last year partnering 204 winners.

Enrique, one of the season's leading three-year-olds, failed to add to the tally yesterday when he finished fifth in Goodwood's premier race of the year, the Sussex Stakes. It was Cecil's only runner on the card and one of six defeats during the course of the afternoon for Fallon, who did though end the day with a win on Zuhair.

The Irishman had earlier slid into the course to avoid the attentions of the unusually swollen press pack. He found a back entrance into the weighing room. The only words he had for his inquisitors all afternoon, during which he was escorted by two policemen, was to refer to them as "a bunch of parasites".

Cecil arrived later in the afternoon and the toll of the last few days was obvious in his tired and drawn features. His first wife, the former trainer Julie Cecil, was on course, but there was no appearance from 32- year-old Natalie Cecil. There was no relief either for Cecil in the Sussex Stakes, in which Aljabr's success saw his arch rivals, the Godolphin team, knock him off the top of the trainers' championship.

The future for Fallon is now unclear. He was yesterday seen talking to Ivan Allan, the Hong Kong-based trainer, and has for long been a fan of the racing, and its attendant riches, in the former colony. Fallon raced in Hong Kong last winter and spring and will spend even longer there at the end of this season. It may become a more permanent home.

Fallon, who is married to Julie and has three children, which include the recent arrival of twins, has ridden 120 winners this season and is likely to be champion jockey for a third consecutive year. Just 30 of those have been for Cecil, a fact which recognises Fallon's popularity with trainers throughout the land. He is reportedly considering an offer already.

Second in the jockeys' table is Richard Quinn, the man who will now take Fallon's post at Warren Place. Cecil will use the best jockeys available until his new arrangement is formalised next season, but it seems certain the 37-year-old Scot will come in for rides immediately.

Quinn will know how Fallon feels. He was sacked, albeit in very different circumstances, as stable jockey to Paul Cole after Generous had finished fourth in his hands in the 1991 2,000 Guineas. The chestnut went on to win the Derby. Quinn has steadily built his base since then to the point where he is the most popular freelance rider in the business. A telephone call from Cecil on Monday night took his career to a different level.

"It's the best job in the country," Quinn said yesterday. "It's very exciting but it's a shame it's come in such circumstances. He [Cecil] has had all those top horses over the years and every year he produces other ones. He is an excellent trainer and I hope I can do the job justice." For him, at least, it has been a truly Glorious Goodwood.