Fallon given green light to end three-year exile
SIX-TIME champion jockey Kieren Fallon admits he cannot wait to get back in the saddle after being cleared to make his comeback following a three-year absence.
Fallon was yesterday granted a riding licence by the British Horseracing Authority in London, after completing an 18-month drugs suspension. However, he has not competed since July 2006, when the Old Bailey trial into alleged race-fixing began.
The 44-year-old Irishman is set to ride on Friday at Lingfield and Kempton, before his Group One return on board ante-post favourite High Standing in the Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock on Saturday.
“It’s all gone well,” Fallon said after yesterday’s 30-minute hearing at the BHA in London. “I’m delighted and just looking forward to Friday now. Let’s hope that I am fit enough – I hopefully will be. I have been working hard but it is different when you are race riding. Getting back into the winner’s enclosure as many times as I can that is my goal at the moment.”
Fallon, who has won three English Derbies, four 2,000 Guineas and two Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, was cleared at the race-fixing trial. But he was banned in January 2008 after testing positive for a banned substance at Deauville in France.