Top jockey Kieren Fallon, who is on trial over allegations of race fixing, has North Yorkshire connections to thank for his incredible rise to fame. Stuart Arnold reports

BY far the best known of the defendants in the dock at the Old Bailey, Kieren Fallon has swept all before him in the Flat racing world, becoming champion jockey six times and achieving three Derby wins in the process.

But back in 1984, then aged 19, things were a little different with Fallon finding that his start in racing was very difficult.

Irishman Fallon, who was born in Crusheen, County Clare, was signed as an apprentice jockey to stables in his home country when he was a 17.

He then had to wait two years for his first winner while struggling in the relative backwater of the Irish racing circuit.

That came in 1984 when he finally won with Piccadilly Lord at Navan racecourse.

Four years later, and now one of the best young apprentices in Ireland, he moved to England.

Signed to trainer Jimmy Fitzgerald at Malton, North Yorkshire, his first British winner was Evichstar, at Thirsk in 1988.

The North Yorkshire link continued and provided a springboard to further success when in the early Nineties, he met husband-and-wife training team Jack and Lynda Ramsden, whose stables were based at Breckenbrough House, at Sandhutton, near Thirsk. Regarded as one of the most powerful and shrewdest-run stables in the North, the couple helped provide Fallon step up to the big league.

By 1993, he was their first choice jockey, and won the traditional curtain-raiser to the Flat season - the Lincoln handicap at Doncaster - on High Premium. Fallon went on to secure 92 winners in Mrs Ramsden's best-ever Flat racing season in 1995.

He credits the couple for helping him on his way and also reveals his huge respect for them in his official biography. In return, they stood by him, pledging support when news of his arrest on race-fixing charges broke.

Fallon stayed with the Ramsdens until 1997 when he got his big break with legendary trainer Henry Cecil. With Cecil, he began a three-year sequence as Britain's champion Flat racing jockey, riding 202 winners in his first season. He also topped the 200-mark in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2004.

After leaving Cecil in acrimonious circumstances, he rode for Sir Michael Stoute, before becoming stable jockey for the Irish master, Aidan O'Brien.

It was the O'Brien-trained Dylan Thomas which Fallon rode to victory in Sunday's Arc de Triomphe.

One day, he wins one of Europe's top races, the next he is in the dock, fighting allegations which could send him to prison.

The stakes have never been higher for Kieren Fallon