RACING:Calling time on Kieren Fallon's famously turbulent career has been a dangerous exercise in the past but racing's most controversial jockey faces a major crisis after being handed an 18-month worldwide drugs ban by the French racing authorities.
The results of a France Galop hearing in Paris on Wednesday were confirmed yesterday after a B sample from a drugs test taken at Deauville in August was found to be positive. Fallon immediately announced he will appeal the decision.
Fallon only returned to action last June after serving a six-month ban for a positive cocaine test at Longchamp in June of 2006 and the 42-year-old rider now faces the prospect of losing the coveted job as number one jockey at Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle stables in Tipperary.
Bookmakers are already betting who will replace the Clare-born Fallon at Ballydoyle and Johnny Murtagh is an evens favourite with Paddy Power to take over as retained rider to John Magnier's powerful Coolmore Stud empire.
This latest twist in Fallon's life comes just a month after he was cleared of conspiracy-to-defraud charges at the London Old Bailey. The six times former champion jockey was charged along with five others in July of 2006 and it was in the build-up to the trial that Fallon again tested positive for cocaine at Deauville on August 19th when the Irish-trained Myboycharlie won the Group One Prix Morny.
Fallon's appeal should be heard within the next four weeks.
A France Galop spokesman said yesterday: "The Appeal Commission will meet and examine the appeal. I cannot tell you when it will meet. In France each decision is reached individually. There are no rules in the rulebook that say a jockey has to be suspended for 18 months for having failed a second time."
Fallon was banned from riding in the UK and the US for almost a year and a half due to those fraud charges in Britain but was able to continue riding in Ireland and France during that time and enjoyed one of his finest victories in October's Arc on board Dylan Thomas, just two days after he was informed of the positive test at Deauville.
However, another drugs ban would be reciprocated around the world, just as Fallon's first cocaine suspension was.
Coolmore stood by their jockey during the course of that ban, and during the controversial fraud trial, but the patience of Magnier and his partners with their wayward jockey could be wearing thin.
A spokesman for Coolmore said yesterday: "This is a personal matter for Kieren and for us there is no change. We will continue to use the best available on the day, as before."
Murtagh stepped in for a series of high-profile rides in Britain and the US last year including when winning Group One races on the likes of Dylan Thomas and the champion filly Peeping Fawn.
