Fallon banned over `non-trier'

A four-day ban was imposed on Kieren Fallon at Nottingham yesterday after the jockey was found guilty under the non-triers' rule.

Fallon, riding Champion Hurdle aspirant Dato Star, dropped his hands inside the final furlong and was denied second place on the line by Luca Cumani's Sea of Stone. Totem Dancer was the clear winner.

The track stewards ruled that he had failed to ride out Malcolm Jefferson's 6-5 favourite to the line, and suspended him from riding on 2, 4, 5, 7 November.

Fallon, who will leave Britain in a fortnight's time to ride in America for the rest of the year, pleaded guilty as charged. "I finished third and I should have finished second,'' he said. ``I will have gone to America by the time of the ban, anyway."

Dato Star may now be aimed by trainer Malcolm Jefferson at the November Handicap at Doncaster on 9 November.