Family affair Famous father and son jockeys

David ‘Dandy’ Nicholls was a successful Flat jockey before taking up training. Adrian, who now trains, rode many of the yard’s biggest winners, including two Group One sprints on Regal Parade. Jonjo was a leading National Hunt rider before turning his hand to training, where he has enjoyed a host of top grade winners. Jonjo junior is one of the country’s most promising young jump jockeys and frequently rides for many of the other major jump trainers, too. John is one of the elder statesmen of the Flat weighing room, while son David is in the embryonic stages of a promising career. They became the first father and son to ride against each other in a Classic since 1888 in May’s 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, where David finished third, while John was 12th.

nervous about me doing this to start with, but I think she’s relaxed now she knows I’m in his hands.”

The trainer, son-in-law of Lester Piggott, is insistent that Fallon has got what it takes. “He can ride,” he says. “He’s got natural talent. He’s learning, he sits in the right place in a race. I didn’t want him to go for it and it has happened very quickly. Fair play to his father; he’s loving this and very proud of his son. We just need to keep the momentum up.

“I’ve tried to drum into him that humility is a sportsman’s greatest asset. When Roger Federer gets taken to five sets at Wimbledon by someone half as good, he never says he had an off-day or that he’d had a row with the wife that morning, he says the fellow gave him a fantastic match. He never says he’s the best.”

It is on the trainer’s insistence that, after a week’s holiday, Fallon will spend three months of the winter with trainer Christophe Clement in New York rather than riding winners on the all-weather circuit here, but learning little other than bad habits.

The burden of a famous name has weighed heavily on the offspring of many sports stars but Cieren Fallon wears it lightly. Kieren Fallon was runner-up in the 1987 Irish apprenticeship but, on Saturday, achieving something his father did not manage to do is, as first steps go, a good start.