Fallon has whip hand on critics

Fallon's response is rarely vocal. While it would make great copy if he followed the example of Bobby Robson and rounded on his critics at a press conference, he is a quietly spoken man with a wry sense of humour.

He can have a go face-to-face, but is too shrewd to do so in public. Instead, he responded by winning the first Classic of the season, the Sagitta 2000 Guineas, on Golan.

He did not do it the easy way, instead guiding the horse from what looked an impossible position in last place to sweep through to victory. The horse is now favourite for the Vodafone Derby.

Fallon is what I would call a "momentum rider". He starts moving on a horse much sooner than most other jockeys, galvanising it into lengthening its stride and driving it forwards with his arms and torso.

Having had years of riding handicappers in the north, he loves nothing more than to come through a big field, squeezing through gaps and overtaking beaten horses to put his horse in front just before the line.

He also knows about saving a horse for another day, which may not be a comfort to punters but it should be to any owner, especially of a classy filly.

Fallon is a competitor who enjoys winning small races on horses that should not, on form, have a chance. He gets more pleasure from that than from winning a big race on an odds-on favourite who only needs steering. For Fallon, there is no great skill required in riding a steering job - just a good agent.

I remember seeing his unsmiling face after he won the Oaks on Ramruma in 1999 and asking him why he wasn't happier,

"Because I should have won on the other horse as well," he said, referring to Royal Anthem who had finished second in the Coronation Cup. He won the Derby the next day on Oath, but continued to regret that he had not won the same season's 2000 Guineas on Enrique.

In common with exceptionally driven sportsmen, and I mean the ones that stay hungry rather than those that find a comfortable level of performance and remain within it, the mistakes remain in his memory long after the successes have faded.

Jockeys are more open to criticism than almost any other sportsman or woman because they perform so often in a day, have no team-mates to bail them out of trouble and are backed by punters whose money is lost if they make a mistake.

Having in my youth had a rabid losing punter shout obscenities at me as I returned after an uninspired ride to the unsaddling area reserved for unplaced horses, I know that they get their fair share of abuse.

If Fallon continues to cope with the criticism as well as he has been, he will soon be challenging Pat Eddery at the top of the jockey's table and could yet end the season by taking his fourth championship.

After all, at least one person has told him he can't do it and he needs no greater incentive than that.

That's if you can still call Roger Daltrey a rock star.

His young lookalike, Ryan Sidebottom, is in the squad for the first time. This will no doubt have ageing Daltrey fans reaching for their flares and could inspire another generation to let those curls hang loose.

It's always great to hear a new name being bandied about and I am sure, like Bayern Munich's England Under-21 player Owen Hargreaves last week, that 20 things you didn't know about Sidebottom will be No1 in the pub game top 40 by Sunday.

He had better be up to it on the pitch because otherwise he could well become 'Ryan Who?' before the first pint is downed.

After playing 18 holes at a quiet, unassuming club in Wiltshire, I was asked to remove my fleece before I could have a drink in the nearly deserted bar. It was a perfectly smart fleece jumper, but evidently looked a little too "sporty" for their liking.

I have nothing against a golf club wanting their players to adopt a "smart-casual" dress code and I understand the practicalities of taking off golf shoes before going into the bar, but sometimes they just go too far.

The last thing young people want is to be nagged: that's normally why they get out of the house in the first place and they certainly won't go to a place where the first thing they are told is "you can't wear that in here".