Ian Balding: A Sporting Great Remembered

[Wandering Eyes]

Ian Balding, who has died at the age of 87, made an indelible impression on the turf, not only as the trainer of some wonderful horses including Mill Reef, but also as mentor to many young people who subsequently graduated to success in the sport. Most notable is his son Andrew, who succeeded him at the helm of Kingsclere in 2002 and who has subsequently ensured that Kingsclere remains synonymous with both success and class.

Ian Balding and his elder brother Toby were born in the USA where their father Gerald, a professional polo player, was living at the time. The family returned to Britain after the war and Gerald started training at Weyhill. It soon became clear that the boys were destined to follow their father into the sport. Toby, a keen point-to-point rider, took over his father's stable when he turned 21 in 1957; while Ian's progress towards holding a licence was only slightly more gradual.

Ian's first major sporting achievements came when he was an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he earned a blue for rugby (a sport in which he was to make 92 appearances for Bath). He was never far from the turf, however, and rode out whenever he could at Royston for Willie Stephenson, who at the time was one of the leading dual-purpose trainers in the country. Ian was a natural athlete, very good at many sports including riding, ending up with over 70 wins over jumps as an amateur to his credit. Training was always his aim, though, and on leaving Cambridge he spent a year at The Grange, Beckhampton, as a pupil under Herbert Blagrave, who achieved conspicuous success over an extended period training only his own and his wife's (mostly home-bred) horses.

A position followed as assistant to Captain Peter Hastings-Bass at Kingsclere but sadly tragedy struck after only a year. Peter Hastings-Bass was the son of a great trainer (the Hon Aubrey Hastings, who trained four Grand National winners including one, Ascetic Silver in 1906, whom he rode to victory himself) and in the late '50s and early '60s, training at Kingsclere which he had bought in 1953, he looked set to build a similarly imposing record. The icing on the cake came in the autumn of 1963 when he received eight yearlings from the Queen, who thus supplanted the popular American sportsman and philanthropist Paul Mellon as the stable's most distinguished patron.

Tragically, Peter Hastings-Bass succumbed to a terminal illness the following summer.  There was no possibility of his widow Priscilla taking over the licence at Kingsclere because the Jockey Club at the time did not grant licences to women; while their son most likely to follow in his father's footsteps, William (later Lord Huntingdon), who did in time become a successful trainer, was aged only 16 at the time. Consequently, Ian became the trainer at Kingsclere, aged 25. The link between the Hastings and Balding families was further strengthened in 1969 when Ian married Peter and Priscilla Hastings' daughter Emma.

The two-year-olds at Kingsclere that summer included the Queen's Planta Genista, who had won at Lingfield in April. The best of the bunch, though, seemed to be Mr Mellon's home-bred American colt Silly Season (Tom Fool) who was beaten on debut at Salisbury before heading to Royal Ascot shortly after Ian Balding had officially become his trainer. Fairytales do occasionally come true and Silly Season duly broke his maiden by winning the Coventry Stakes, giving a heartening endorsement that it would remain a case of business as usual at Kingsclere.

Silly Season ended his first season by winning the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket. At three he won the Greenham Stakes at Newbury, the St. James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Champion Stakes at Newmarket; at four he landed both the Lockinge Stakes and the Hungerford Stakes at Newbury. He became a successful stallion at New England Stud with many of his best progeny trained by Ian Balding, including 1972 Greenham Stakes winner Martinmas and 1973 Cambridgeshire heroine Siliciana.

Silly Season, for all that his seven wins included some of Britain's greatest races, was almost as notable for a string of narrow defeats as he was for his triumphs. In later years Ian Balding would recount a discussion which he had with Mellon after the horse's retirement, a conversation which spoke well of both men. Thanking Mellon for having entrusted so talented a horse to an inexperienced trainer, he suggested that Silly Season might have been the best horse they would ever have and that he perhaps had not got the best out of him. Mellon, with typical kindness, assured him that he had trained the horse very well before adding, “And don't worry: I'll soon find a better one to send to you anyway”.  As ever, he was as good as his word and a better one did indeed soon arrive: Mill Reef.

 

Mill Reef is led in by Paul Mellon after the Derby | Getty Images

 

Ian Balding will be remembered as the trainer of some very special horses but the one who will always be at the top of anyone's list is Mill Reef (Never Bend). Bred by Paul Mellon at Rokeby Stud in Virginia, the little colt headed across the Atlantic to Kingsclere as a yearling in the autumn of 1969. Over the next three years Mill Reef proved himself one of the greatest horses ever to have graced the British turf. The story is beautifully told in Lord Oaksey's book The Story of Mill Reef and in Brough Scott's film Something to Brighten the Morning which, narrated by Albert Finney, has helped to ensure that the names Mill Reef, Paul Mellon, Ian Balding, Geoff Lewis (the stable jockey) and John Hallum (who looked after the horse) will forever loom large in the romance of the turf.

A champion at two, three and four, Mill Reef was beaten only once (by Brigadier Gerard in the 2,000 Guineas) and won some of the greatest races including the Coventry, Gimcrack and Dewhurst Stakes at two, the Derby, Eclipse Stakes, King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at three (in a season which Ian Balding ended as champion trainer); and the Prix Ganay and Coronation Cup at four.  He retired to the National Stud, from which he twice became Champion Sire (in 1978 and 1987) thanks to his Derby-winning sons Shirley Heights (who in turn sired the 1985 Derby winner Slip Anchor) and Reference Point.

While Ian Balding trained some notable horses for the Queen, including the 1970 Doncaster Cup winner Magna Carta (Charlottesville), Mellon's 'black, gold cross front and back; black cap, gold stripe' stands as the livery most synonymous with the trainer, and not solely thanks to Mill Reef. Several sons of Mill Reef carried them with great distinction including the multiple Group 1-winning full-brothers Glint Of Gold and Diamond Shoal, as well as King Of Clubs.

Over jumps Crystal Spirit (Kris), a half-brother to Glint Of Gold and Diamond Shoal won the Cleeve Hurdle and the Sun Alliance Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1991; while another Mellon home-bred who ranked up with Glint Of Gold and Diamond Shoal was Gold And Ivory (Key To The Mint). Other top-class colts for the stable included George Strawbridge's Selkirk (Sharpen Up), Jeff Smith's Dashing Blade (Elegant Air) and Mr and Mrs Robert Hitchens' Tagula (Taufan), all of whom went on to make a significant mark at stud.

Classic-winning fillies for Ian Balding were Eric Kronfeld's 1980 Prix de Diane heroine Mrs Penny (Great Nephew) and Paul Mellon's tiny home-bred tigress Forest Flower (Green Forest). The latter's dam Leap Lively (Nijinsky) had been a good filly for owner and trainer, winning the Fillies' Mile at Ascot in 1980 before finishing third to Blue Wind in the following year's Oaks. Forest Flower belied her lack of size by doing even better, landing the Queen Mary Stakes, Cherry Hinton Stakes and, fittingly, Mill Reef Stakes as a two-year-old in 1986 before taking the Irish 1,000 Guineas the following year. It is lovely that those famous Mellon colours are now carried by the Kingsclere Stud horses produced by Emma Balding, whose proteges include the Andrew Balding-trained Group 1 winners Side Glance and Elm Park, both of whose sires (Passing Glance and Phoenix Reach) had been trained at Kingsclere.

 

Ian Balding, right, with long-term Kingsclere supporter Jeff Smith | Racingfotos

 

It turned out that Forest Flower was not the mightiest amazon trained by Ian Balding because she was followed by Jeff Smith's home-bred Lochsong (Song), whose career provided arguably the greatest tribute to Ian Balding's skill. She spent most of her two- and three-year-old seasons proving nothing other than that she was a very hard-puller who was difficult to keep sound. Unraced at two in 1990, she won a maiden race at Redcar and an apprentice handicap at Newbury towards the end of a three-race campaign in 1991, suggesting that perhaps it was worth persevering with her.

Over the next three seasons Lochsong was sublime (bar in the 1994 July Cup, when she reminded us that she was still very much a handful, doing her best of her running on the way to post). She raced 24 times over those three seasons, winning 13 times and being placed six. At four she completed the Stewards' Cup, Portland and Ayr Gold Cup treble. At five her wins included the King George Stakes, Nunthorpe Stakes and Prix de l'Abbaye. At six she won consecutively the Palace House Stakes, Temple Stakes and King's Stand Stakes (by five lengths) before landing repeat wins in the King George Stakes and Prix de l'Abbaye. She was voted Cartier Champion Sprinter in both 1993 and '94 and Cartier Horse of the Year in 1994.

Throughout his career, Ian Balding showed himself equally good at educating both horses and jockeys. The first of his apprentices to be champion was Ernie Johnson (in 1967) who had started his apprenticeship under Peter Hastings. Next came Philip Waldron in 1970. Subsequently stable jockey to Henry Candy, Philip Waldron served his time alongside John Matthias, who became the Kingsclere jockey for several years, most notably riding Glint Of Gold in most of his races. The tradition of promoting the stable's apprentices again shone brightly when Francis Arrowsmith won the Ayr Gold Cup on Lochsong after Willie Carson had been on her in the first two legs of her great treble. It has continued under Andrew Balding, with William Buick and David Probert sharing the apprentices' title in 2008, Oisin Murphy taking it in 2014 (before going on to be, to date, champion jockey five times) and Jason Watson doing so in 2018.

Ian Balding will deservedly be remembered as one of the great trainers of the modern era, notable for training his horses kindly and being adept at nurturing them for long careers, even those who started out as precocious two-year-olds. Aside from the horses' many great victories, further sources of pride for the family have been the outstanding careers developed by his and Emma's children Clare (whose broadcasting achievements need no introduction) and Andrew. The latter succeeded his father at the end of the 2002 season and has fully maintained Kingsclere's position as one of the world's greatest and most successful stables. The tone was set on a magical afternoon in June 2003 when Will Farish's Casual Look (Red Ransom) won the Oaks for first-season trainer Andrew Balding, ridden by former Ian Balding apprentice Martin Dwyer, with the BBC broadcast of the race presented by Clare Balding. Two very proud parents could rest easy that the future was in safe hands.

Ian Balding is survived by Emma, their children Clare and Andrew, and by their grandchildren Jonno, Toby and Flora. We join the entire racing world in offering this very popular family our condolences.

 

The post Ian Balding: A Sporting Great Remembered  appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article