Fallon captains Shergar Cup team

Champion jockey Kieren Fallon will lead the Great Britain & Ireland team of jockeys for the Blue Square Shergar Cup, which takes place at Ascot next month.

Former top jockeys Jason Weaver and Michael Roberts will once again be team selectors for the competition.

The pair will draw for mounts on Thursday August 5, two days before the meeting gets underway, with Weaver selecting the horses that will represent Great Britain & Ireland.

He will be hoping to avenge last year’s heavy defeat of the home team while South African-born Roberts, the British champion in 1992, will pick the mounts for Rest of the World.

Roberts’ team started big outsiders in 2003 after some questioned the wisdom of his selections, but they defied the odds with a runaway victory.

As last year, Kieren Fallon will captain the Great Britain & Ireland team with Frankie Dettori leading the Rest of the World.

The full line-up of jockeys that will make up the six-strong teams will be announced next week.

Entries for the six Shergar Cup races total 452 compared to 368 12 months ago.

“We are delighted with these entries,” said Ascot’s racing director, Nick Cheyne.

“It is important that we get 10 runners and two reserves in each race to keep the teams balanced, so the bigger the entry, the more certainty there is that we will achieve this.

“There are a lot of very high class handicappers in each of the five handicaps, while the two-year-old auction race, the Porthault Shergar Cup Juvenile, has attracted a very strong entry as well.

“Mind you, with each race worth over £45,000 (€67,400) we would be disappointed if that wasn’t the case.”