False rape claim charge

Michael Walker

Top jockey Michael Walker just wants to concentrate on his riding after revelations of a false rape claim made against him.

Saying he had no comment to make about the claim, Walker, 22, added yesterday: "I just want to concentrate on my riding.

"I don't want to comment. Wait until it is before the court. I don't want to say anything because I have been advised it could be used."

A Napier woman, 21, has been charged with making a false complaint about an incident she claimed took place on Friday morning.

She has been released on bail and will appear in the Hastings District Court on Wednesday.

Walker, who was riding in Hastings and Gisborne over the weekend, was once considered the "wild child" of racing.

In Hastings on Saturday, he won one race and came a close second in another in the group-one Stoney Bridge Stakes.

At yesterday's Poverty Bay meeting at Gisborne, he did not win any races.

Walker, who is engaged and has a young baby, admitted in a television interview last year he used cocaine during a seven-month riding stint in Melbourne in 2004.