Title holder's fallen during road race at the start (9)
I believe the answer is:
landowner
'race at the start' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't see how one could define the other.
'title holder's fallen during road' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'title holder' could be 'owner' (I've seen this before) and 'owner' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'land' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for landowner that I've seen before include "Owner of an area" , "Man of means" , "man of property" , "Possessor of real estate" , "Squire, perhaps" .)