A.P.O`Brien , Master of Ballydoyle?

Question

So in light of Mr Fallon turning out to be a junkie the question is who will be stable jockey next season and does anyone agree that it should be a case of step forward Seamus Heffernan. ?

Answer 1

I'm not sure that Seamie has enough experience just yet to take on such a high profile role.  Just look at the debacle when Jamie Spencer took the job!

There is no doubt the Seamie is a talented rider, but give him a few more year's experience riding for other owners/yards and then he'd be up for it.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the stable job, as Coolmore's statement yesterday seems to be putting as much distance between them and Mr Fallon as possible.

I thought Alastair Down's column in the Racing Post on Sunday summed it all up for me:

Horse Racing: Patience has worn thin - racing cannot afford the type of figurehead Fallon's become

Fallon trial aftermath

Published: 09/12/2007 (Sport) Alastair Down on the latest episode in the troubled story of Kieren Fallon

ON FRIDAY Kieren Fallon left the Old Bailey an innocent and vindicated man. Less than a day later he had managed to turn public triumph into personal disaster when it emerged that he had once again tested positive for a prohibited substance after a random drugs test in France.

Fallon returned to action in June after serving a six-month worldwide ban imposed by the French racing authorities for using cocaine. Just weeks later, on August 19 at Deauville, he was tested once more, and the A sample has come up positive once more for a prohibited substance. He was riding Myboycharlie in the Prix Morny that afternoon and connoisseurs of extreme irony who are not familiar with drug vocabulary should note that as 'smack' is the word for heroin, so 'charlie' is the universal term for cocaine.

A feature of the entire run-up to the case at the Old Bailey was the totality of the backing given to Fallon by his employers at Coolmore. John Magnier, the most powerful individual in world racing, placed every resource at his jockey's disposal. The normally considered figure of Aidan O'Brien was on more than one occasion quite literally impassioned in his defence of Fallon.

It is quite impossible to overestimate the determination of the Coolmore clan that their man should be cleared of charges they believed to be both false and flimsy. Their support was unswerving and they were proved gloriously right when the judge put an end to a farcical trial that made the City of London police look ignorant, arrogant and incompetent.

The judge's action in putting the prosecution out if its misery to save it any more pain also left the British racing authorities with a raft of questions to answer, not least: Who was responsible for the monumental incompetence that led to the employment of Aussie steward Ray Murrihy, the man who almost single-handedly opened the sea-c***s and scuttled the prosecution case?

Whoever recommended Murrihy must be identified and prevented from having the authority to make such calamitous decisions again.

But now Fallon has mauled the hand that fed him. It is one thing for Coolmore to stand by their man to fight a perceived travesty of justice; quite another to ask them to go shoulder to shoulder once again with someone of such profound stupidity and rank ingratitude that he could fail a drugs test within two months of serving a cocaine ban.

If Fallon's B sample comes up positive for cocaine, then he will face an 18-month ban. Would Coolmore stand by him then? Should they? No - after all, there is a world of difference between loyalty and rank masochism. For all their fashionable status in certain sections of society, Class A drugs rightly do not play well with the public. And in Ireland, following the drug horrors of Dublin in the 1990s and the death of the utterly fearless investigative journalist Veronica Guerin, they don't play at all.

Fallon fighting the long-suspect enemy of British justice is a cause to rally round, but a man who thinks the rules on prohibited substances do not apply to him, merely to lesser mortals, is a far less defensible proposition.

Either Fallon is a man who recreationally stuffs his salary up his nose or he has a serious drug problem. I am not unsympathetic towards coke addicts, having met plenty while being treated for my own alcohol problems. If he needs help, then he should do what everyone else does and go and get it. But for God's sake stop doing it on our time. Racing is immensely tolerant of human shortcomings, but as a sport we can no longer afford the luxury of Fallon dragging us through the mire.

However much of a genius Fallon may be in the saddle, and however universally admired as a jockey, there comes a time when the patience of the public begins to wear thin.

They have their own everyday worries to deal with and an undisciplined multi-millionaire with his finger on the self-destruct button who is prepared to abuse his most stalwart supporters as Fallon has abused all at Coolmore is someone for whom sympathy will drain away like water down the plughole.

It is a man's prerogative to be a fool to himself, pathetic though the spectacle may be. Fallon damaging himself is his business, but it has moved beyond that, and a six-time champion jockey who is also a two-time coke abuser is not the type of figurehead racing needs or can afford.

So clear off, Kieren, and get yourself sorted out. You will be welcome back when - or if - you grow up enough to treat this sport with the respect it has so generously accorded to you.

'Racing is immensely tolerant of human shortcomings but as a sport we can no longer afford the luxury of Kieren Fallon dragging us through the mire'

Answer 2

i have notice that ap o brien.says that he know fallon was a junkie for a long time.but he still book him to ride for him.and if he was concern about fallon like he says he was.why did he not report him.and fallon might of seek help.

Answer 3

It will be a lesser known   Irish jockey

Answer 4

dunno but im glad missnewm gave her  shortened version