Fallon’s career has hung by a slender thread since the News of the World branded him “The Fixer” in March, publishing extracts from tapes made by undercover reporters posing as potential racehorse owners. Now, despite facing a related Jockey Club disrepute charge, Fallon intends to release the tapes to a wider media.

The jockey is in Hong Kong this week, preparing for the Cup meeting on Sunday, but conversations with his legal team have confirmed a plan of action. Christopher Stewart-Moore, his solicitor, said yesterday: “We have established that the copyright on the tapes is Kieren’s and we think it is time they were heard. I have today dictated a letter to the Jockey Club telling them this is our intention.”

Stewart-Moore, who said that legal actions on behalf of Fallon are being delayed pending the conclusion of the ongoing police inquiry into him and other racing figures, indicated that the publishing of the tapes will reveal his client in a new light. “I feel people will be very surprised when they see the content and context. There is some pretty bad language but that’s jockeys for you,” he admitted. “But the reporters try to goad him into making racist and anti-royalist remarks and they get absolutely nowhere.”

• Not every jump racing devotee could be at Sandown Park last Saturday, nor even be in front of Channel 4’s coverage. I know several who were in their cars, or Christmas shopping, relying on radio to follow one of the most keenly awaited steeplechases of recent years — and being deeply disappointed.

  While nobody can dispute that football commands the greatest audience on Radio Five Live, there are surely occasions when other events demand a fair hearing. The decision to stay with commentary on the dying minutes of a Premiership game that Chelsea were already winning 3-0, thereby missing the Tingle Creek Chase, was depressing. Offering listeners a recorded commentary once the race was over added insult to injury.

  THE only obvious link between Christopher Spence and Ginger McCain is that Spence is a pillar of the racing establishment McCain loves to lampoon. Now, though, they have a horse in common — a small but remarkably effective three-year-old filly called Calomeria, who has already won three juvenile hurdles.

  Spence, a past senior steward of the Jockey Club, was on hand for her latest win at Sandown last Friday and recalled: “I bred her at home and she is the great-niece of Celeric, but seemed to have inherited none of his ability. We got so fed up with her on the Flat that I asked Ralph Beckett to run her in a claimer and when Ginger paid £5,000 for her I thought it was Christmas.”

  Now, it is the incorrigible McCain dreaming of Christmas, when Calomeria will be fancied for a grade one hurdle at Chepstow. Which, as Spencer reflected ruefully, just goes to show that racing will always surprise even a man of his stature and experience.

  STUCK for a saucy Christmas present? Log on to eBay, the auction website, and bid for the “Stable Girls’ Sexy Charity Calendar”, in which some appropriately clad lasses — tight white breeches, black boots and whips — pose for a fine cause.

  The girls of the Middleton Park Equestrian Centre have got some of their kit off to raise funds for the Riding For The Disabled “Raise The Roof” Campaign. Bids for the calendars start at £7.

• First with decent coffee and now with real ale, racecourses are steadily stocking up with the good things in life. The Hogs Back Brewery started its real ale bar at Sandown a few months back and has since been recruited by Ascot, Newbury and Kempton. Beware the latest brew on offer, though — Santa’s Wobble, at an alcohol content of 7.6 per cent, is not for the faint-hearted.