Fallon still looking to make impact in California

ARCADIA, Calif. – Kieren Fallon is busiest in the mornings these days.

A six-time champion jockey in England, Fallon works several mornings each week at Santa Anita for trainers such as Ben Cecil and Doug O’Neill, exercising horses ranging in ability from maidens to stakes runners. When training ends at 10 a.m., so do Fallon’s obligations on most racing days. Despite his remarkable achievements in Europe in the 1990s and 2000s, Fallon, 51, has been unable to find a niche as a jockey in Southern California.

Fallon insists that he wants to ride in Southern California. In the fall of 2014, he announced that he was moving from England to Southern California, saying his career had gotten a “bit stale.” Nearly 18 months later, Fallon still hasn’t been able to ride races on a regular basis.

“It will be tough here,” Fallon said last weekend. “The other day, I counted 51 jockeys, and they’re running five, six, or seven horses. The boys here – Desormeaux, Stevens, Espinoza, Smith, and the others – they’ve been here all their lives.

“I love California, and I know it’s tough when you’re 50. I enjoy riding, and I love my horses. We get paid to ride horses.”

Fallon had one mount on Monday’s nine-race program, finishing last for O’Neill on the 3-year-old maiden I Am the Colonel. He is winless in 10 mounts through the first 16 days of the winter-spring meeting. Last year, Fallon had 82 mounts in the United States, with one victory in an optional claimer at Santa Anita in October.

Through Monday, 54 riders have had at least one mount at the current Santa Anita meeting. There are four Hall of Famers in the group – Kent Desormeaux, Mike Smith, Alex Solis, and Gary Stevens. None has had a career quite like Fallon’s.

Fallon has been the stable jockey for the legendary trainers Henry Cecil (1997-99), Michael Stoute (2000-01), and Aidan O’Brien (2005-07). He has won 16 English classic races – the English 2000 Guineas five times, the English Oaks and English 1000 Guineas four times each, and the English Derby three times. He has 29 wins at Royal Ascot and has won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and Irish Derby twice each.

Through the years, Fallon also has had his share of difficulties. He served two suspensions for drug positives. He was arrested on allegations of race fixing in Britain in 2004 but fought the charges and was exonerated.

His last major win in England was the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on Night of Thunder in May 2014, one of his 62 wins in that country that year. He had three victories in the United States in the final months of 2014.

In early 2015, Fallon rode in England, winning 10 races, but was back in the United States by June. As the season progressed, he rode throughout the nation, with mounts at tracks as diverse as Del Mar and Saratoga and at Indiana Grand and Kentucky Downs.

In late September and early October, Fallon was back in England briefly, to see family, he said, and rode a few races before returning to the United States. He had one mount at Belmont Park in October and worked horses at Keeneland prior to the Breeders’ Cup before returning to California. But Fallon said he does not plan to quit.

“There’s no point retiring,” he said. “You’d go nuts. To start training, it’s too expensive.”

Fallon has a fan in trainer Ben Cecil, the nephew of the late Henry Cecil. Fallon’s feedback after a workout is invaluable, he said.

“He’ll tell you a lot about every horse,” Cecil said. “He’s very helpful.”

Fallon said he is hopeful that the morning work will lead to more opportunities to ride in races. Last Saturday, he finished third on a maiden claimer. “We’re getting closer,” he said while walking back to the jockeys’ room.

Riding in maiden claimers is a far cry from his success in England, where he won riding titles from 1997-99 and from 2001-03, or in this country, where he won consecutive runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf in 2003 and 2004 with Islington and Ouija Board and the 2005 Arlington Million on Powerscourt.

He is proud of those wins but knows they mean little more than a decade later to horsemen largely unfamiliar with his résumé.

“A lot of trainers didn’t see,” he said of his big-race wins. “No matter what you’ve accomplished at home, it’s different here. It will be hard unless you’re riding winners.”