Kieren Fallon Flat out for jockey's title

The six-times title holder partnered 140 winners last term, seeing him finish third behind Paul Hanagan and Richard Hughes in the championship battle.

Fallon, 45, principally rode for Luca Cumani last term but with the likes of Mark Johnston, Mick Channon, Brian Meehan, Ed Dunlop and Sir Michael Stoute also giving him the leg up, he hopes to launch a real challenge for title honours in 2011.

"I had to change my agent a couple of months into the season as he didn't want to continue, and things didn't really work out for me as I'd hoped," he told Racing UK.

"But I still rode 140 winners and finished the season well. Since Mark (Johnston) and Sir Michael started putting me up, it really built up my confidence.

"This year I'll be really hungry, probably more so than any other jockey and I'm going to be working really hard.

"With Luca having a strong team of horses and, if Mark continues to use me, then I've got every chance of being be up at the top when it matters."

Hanagan and Hughes enjoyed a close-run battle for top honours in 2010 and Fallon is well aware of the pressures involved in chasing the title. "I've done it many times before and know what it takes and how to pace myself," he continued. "Richard didn't know he was in the championship until after Royal Ascot. I talked to him in the weighing room at Ascot when he was 28-1 and I said to him, 'Richard you've got a chance here'. He did take some days off and then all of a sudden he went for it - but if you're going for the championship you can't afford to take one day off. In the end he just killed himself, taking in all the night meetings and going for 10 or 12 rides a day.

"He's tough but, after having thrown so much at it, has he got anything left? Hopefully he won't, and there will be only one or two guys to go after, rather than three or four."

Fallon is currently based in the UAE for the Dubai International Racing Carnival and he has singled out Marinous, winner of the Grand Prix De Deauville and sixth in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, as his big hope on Dubai World Cup night on 26 March.

"He is the one I am really looking forward to and we are hoping he will make his mark in the Dubai Sheema Classic," he said.

Fallon also picked out the Cumani-trained Mabait as a horse to follow when the Carnival kicks off on 13 January."He's a horse who's done nothing but progress all year and just got better and better," he added.

"He's been training well and looks good, and will be a very hard horse to beat if he acts on the Tapeta surface at the first meeting."

Meanwhile, The Irish challenge for tomorrow's Coral Welsh National has been severely depleted with Becauseicouldntsee being ruled out and compatriot Lochan Lacha a "doubtful" runner.

Becauseicouldntsee was an excellent second in last month's Paddy Power Chase at Leopardstown and was as short as 14-1 for this weekend's Chepstow marathon. But his trainer Noel Glynn is keen to save his charge for a tilt at the Grand National at Aintree in April.