Veteran jockey Fallon thinks about new career as trainer

The six-time champion jockey, who has had turbulent times over the years, is now 47 and struggling to secure regular rides in Britain’s top races.

Although he can count on rides from the likes of Luca Cumani, he does not have regular support from a very top stable and his 81 winners this season leave him 70 short of Richard Hughes who is the runaway leader in the title race.

Fallon, who served his apprenticeship at Malton with the late Jimmy Fitzgerald, conceded at the Leaders in Racing conference yesterday: “I don’t think I’ll have many years left.

“I feel great. I feel as fit as ever and I’m enjoying it, but I’m not getting the same rides as I used to.

“I’ve had a great career, I’ve enjoyed it, and I wouldn’t like to go out without riding in the big races.

“If it continues to go downhill, I wouldn’t stick around.”

Asked whether training would be an option in the future, Fallon said: “I don’t know. I would like to train. I thought for a long time I wouldn’t want to because I wouldn’t enjoy it.”

Meanwhile Channel 4’s sports editor Jamie Aitchison has promised his team will not be afraid of confronting the big issues when racing moves to his channel next year.

There is to be a major overhaul of the Channel 4 programme from a different production company, IMG Sports Media, when fixtures such as the Grand National and Derby move from the BBC in 2013.

Aitchison led the station’s successful production of the Paralympics and must find ways of increasing the popularity of the Sport of kings.

It is a challenge made easier by the recruitment of top broadcaster Clare Balding, the face of BBC racing until the Corporation chose to sether its TV ties with the sport.

“Racing is now with a broadcaster which can challenge perceptions and knows how to market to an audience,” he told the conference. “We have carried out major market research which says you can’t target the horse, it’s got to be about the public and human heroes. To bring more people into racing, it has to be about the jockeys, the trainers and the stories.”

Aitchison’s biggest issue could be the Grand National which was again the subject of unfavourable headlines following the deaths of Synchronised and According To Pete this year. “As a channel, we deal with controversy and almost court it,” he said. “We don’t shy away. We’re not scared of the National. For us, it’s bring it on.”

Another speaker was the new British Horseracing Authority chief executive Paul Bittar who described the current Levy system as a “complete anachronism” and said that the sport will change radically over the next decade.