'It was like a motorbike accident and I went head first into the ground'

In an extract from his autobiography Form, Kieren Fallon talks about the horror fall that almost ended his championship-winning career

I always loved Royal Ascot. Most flat jockeys do. The Classics are special and they are the pinnacles of racing, but there was still a kind of glamour about Royal Ascot that you don’t get anywhere else in England. It felt a bit like the Breeders’ Cup to me. It had that kind of allure. I suppose it’s the flat’s equivalent of the Cheltenham Festival.

Part of the magic was the presence of a lot of foreign jockeys. It had an international feeling. I got more of a kick out of beating Frankie Dettori at Ascot than anywhere else, and he and Mick Kinane were two of the best jockeys in the world at that time, but Royal Ascot offered the opportunity to test yourself against riders you didn’t get to face too often and that gave it something extra.