Racing: Fallon stalks title with help from the waiting game

A milestone can be a mark passed with such regularity that it hardly turns heads or one that is reached after sterling effort and celebrated accordingly. Yesterday afternoon, the four-times champion jockey Kieren Fallon cruised to a seasonal century of winners for the sixth time in his career and trainer Brian Meehan secured only his third Group One prize when Kaieteur triumphed in Germany.

Fallon, 37, completed his 100 at Chester with a double on Late Claim and Random Quest, showing his professional qualities to exceptional effect on the last-named in the two-and-a-quarter mile handicap as he gave a masterclass in waiting in front round two circuits of the Roodeye. But the round number is small beer for a rider these days; you have to go back to 1944 for the last time the Flat title was taken with a two- figure total and Fallon himself is a triple double-centurion.

But though, barring accident (and keep saluting magpies, for the only gap in his recent hegemony came when he suffered horrific arm injuries in a fall two years ago) he is heading for a fifth title, quality is as important as quantity for the Irishman and his run-of-the-mill pair yesterday merely capped an exceptional week.

Two days ago Fallon captured his second successive Saturday Group One when Islington staked her claim as one of the genuine stars of the season with a scintillating success in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood. Eight days earlier, her Sir Michael Stoute stablemate Golan, in the same pale blue colours of their late owner-breeder Lord Weinstock, had taken the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.

The manner of Islington's victory was more than enough to banish the disappointment of her Oaks failure and Fallon paid her a considerable compliment. "I've ridden some very good fillies, like Sleepytime, Reams Of Verse and Bosra Sham," he said, "but this filly is as good, if not better. She's got everything." Islington's next target is likely to be the Yorkshire Oaks on the Knavesmire next month, the day after Golan turns out in the International.

Meehan's faith in Kaieteur was entirely justified in the Bayerisches Zuchtrennen, a 10-furlong all-aged contest at Munich. Ridden by Pat Eddery, the three-year-old, who has been running with credit against the best of the season's progressive second division, powered away from local runner Noriot and another raider, Mick Channon's Imperial Dancer, to win by two lengths.

The colt followed Tomba (Prix de la Foret) and Bad As I Wanna Be (Prix Morny) onto the 35-year-old Lambourn-based trainer's top-level CV in a 10-year-career that has not been without his reverses. He lost subsequent French Derby winner Holding Court as a two-year-old, and had Bad As I Wanna Be head-hunted by Godolphin.

The blue team's Equerry was among the vanquished in Germany yesterday and there was another reverse in America on Saturday night, when Dubai World Cup winner Street Cry met with his first defeat of the year in the Grade One Whitney Handicap at Saratoga. There were mitigating circumstances, however, as the four-year-old was giving 5lb to the winner Left Bank, who covered the nine furlongs in record time, and was dropping back in distance.

In Europe, with Grandera and Noverre palpably outranked, the Dubai-based operation must look to last year's champion Sakhee to furnish top colts' honours. The five-year-old is due to make his next appearance in the Prix Gontaut-Biron at Deauville on Saturday. This means that Frankie Dettori relinquishes his captaincy of the Rest Of The World in the novelty jockeys' team challenge at Ascot, the Shergar Cup. American David Flores steps into his breeches.

The Deauville summer season has begun with unseasonal soggy weather and ground, which caused the withdrawal yesterday of Banks Hill from the Prix d'Astarte. In her absence the mile contest went to Turtle Bow, fourth in the French Oaks after four straight wins. In the other Group Two all-filly contest on the card, Banks Hill's André Fabre stablemate Benamixa racked up a hat-trick in the Prix de Pomone as she thwarted the Marcus Tregoning-trained Oaks third Shadow Dancing by three-quarters of a length.

Henry Oliver, one of the rising stars on the jumping scene, will undergo surgery today after breaking his right tibia in a fall at Worcester on Saturday and faces three months on the sidelines. But it could have been worse; his unfortunately-named mount was called Arm And A Leg.