Clare Balding

Early life and family

Balding was educated at Downe House in Berkshire, where she was Head Girl and a contemporary of comedian Miranda Hart. Hart and Balding are in fact tenth-cousins, sharing a nine-times-great-grandfather in Sir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet.

Balding applied to read law at Christ's College, Cambridge, but failed her interview and realised that law was not what she most wanted to do. She later successfully applied to Newnham College, Cambridge, and read English. While at university she was President of the Cambridge Union Society in Easter 1992 and graduated in 1993 with a 2:1 honours degree.

From 1988 to 1993, Balding was a leading amateur flat jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990. Her memoir My Animals and Other Family documents her life growing up in a racing yard. It won the National Book Awards "Autobiography of the Year" in 2012.

Balding has close family links to horse racing: her father, Ian Balding, trained Mill Reef, 1971 winner of the Epsom Derby, Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes; and her younger brother, Andrew Balding, trained Casual Look, the winner of the 2003 Epsom Oaks. The latter win led to a very emotional post-race interview with her brother. Her uncle Toby Balding trained winners in the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle. Furthermore, her maternal grandfather was the trainer Peter Hastings-Bass and her maternal uncle the 17th Earl of Huntingdon was once trainer to Queen Elizabeth II. Her maternal grandmother, Priscilla Hastings, is descended from the Earls of Derby and was one of the first women elected to membership of the Jockey Club. Balding's well-documented aristocratic lineage on her mother's side can be seen in records that TheGenealogist has identified in research. Researchers found Balding's maternal line reveals that she is the great-granddaughter of Sir Malcolm Bullock whose sexuality was investigated in her episode of the Who Do You Think You Are? programme first broadcast in July 2017. Balding's paternal grandfather Gerald Barnard Balding Sr, was a 10-goal polo player who travelled to play polo in America in the 1920s when he was in his 20s. Outbound passenger lists on a genealogy website include Balding's grandfather and it was at this time that Gerald Balding Sr met and later married the American heiress, Eleanor Hoagland.

Broadcasting career

Clare became a trainee with BBC National Radio in 1994, working on 5 Live, Radio 1 (presenting the sport on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show), Radio 2 and Radio 4. In June 1995, she made her debut as a television presenter, introducing highlights of Royal Ascot. The following year she began presenting live, and in December 1997 she became the BBC's lead horse racing presenter after the retirement of Julian Wilson, and has fronted coverage of the Grand National. Infamously humiliating Liam Treadwell Grand National winner 2009.

Balding has reported from six Olympic Games, for BBC Radio in Atlanta and for BBC Television in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro. She has presented four Paralympic Games, the Winter Olympics from Salt Lake City, Turin, Vancouver and Sochi as well as the Commonwealth Games from Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow. She was the face of the BBC's rugby league coverage, having presented Grandstand from a Rugby League Challenge Cup semi-final, and having been so impressed by the vibrancy and physical challenge of the sport she asked to cover further rugby league events. She was the last person to present Sunday Grandstand.

She also presents the Lord Mayor's Show as well as other live events for the BBC, such as Trooping the Colour and New Year's Eve. Clare has presented Crufts for the BBC from 2004 – 2009 and for Channel 4 since 2013.

She also presents the walking programme Ramblings for BBC Radio 4 where she walks and talks with one or more devotees of a particular route, area or activity and has, for example, walked sections of the Lyke Wake Walk and Dales Way for the programme. Clare worked on 5 Live's Wimbledon coverage from 1995–2014 and in 2015 presented BBC2's Wimbledon Highlights programme. She has also presented the Boat Race for the BBC since 2010, including the first live coverage of the women's Boat Race on the Tideway in 2015.

In 2010, Balding presented a BBC TV series that retraced some of Harold Briercliffe's British cycle tours.

In August 2011 Balding joined BBC's Countryfile, temporarily replacing Julia Bradbury while she was on maternity leave, co-hosting the show with Matt Baker. Bradbury returned in February 2012.

From February to March 2012 she presented "Sport and the British" on BBC Radio 4, a thirty-part series looking at the impact of sports on British life.

Balding was a lead presenter on Channel 4's Paralympics TV coverage. In August 2012 it was reported that Balding would be presenting Channel 4's racing coverage, while still retaining an option to work for the BBC on non-racing programmes such as rugby league.

In October 2012, she appeared before an All Party Parliamentary Group on Women's Sport, with Katherine Grainger, Hope Powell and Tanni Grey-Thompson. "Women having freedom to play sport leads directly to women having political freedom," said Balding.

In 2013, to mark the centenary of Emily Wilding Davison's fatal intervention in the 1913 Derby, Balding presented a documentary about Davison for Channel 4 called Secrets of the Suffragettes. Also in 2013, she presented a BBC documentary about the Queen called The Queen – a Passion for Horses. Other factual documentaries for the BBC have included Britain By Bike, Operation Wild, and Britain's Hidden Heritage.

She has served as one of the presenters on BBC Sports Personality of the Year. She is the new regular presenter of Good Morning Sunday on BBC Radio 2 taking over from Aled Jones. Balding also presented a Saturday night quiz show for BBC1 called Britain's Brightest, which began in January 2013, described as "Ordinary people with extraordinary minds face a series of nail-biting challenges and demanding puzzles as they battle to become crowned as Britain's Brightest".

From 2013 until 2016, she has been a senior presenter on Channel 4 Racing, predominantly fronting coverage of major festivals such as Cheltenham and Royal Ascot.

Balding currently hosts her own sports chat show called The Clare Balding Show, which airs on BT Sport and BBC Two. Guests so far have included Lewis Hamilton, Tom Daley, Mike Tyson, Martina Navratilova, Frankie Dettori, Judy Murray and Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Writing

Clare has written columns for The Sporting Life, Racing Post, Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and Stylist and currently writes a regular weekly sports column for Waitrose Weekend.

She signed a deal with Viking Press to write an autobiography entitled My Animals and Other Family, which was published on September 2012. My Animals and Other Family reached Number One in The Sunday Times Bestseller list and has been translated into Italian, Mandarin and Hungarian. Her second book, Walking Home: My Family and other Ramblings, was published in September 2014.

Awards and assessment

Balding was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting and journalism. In the same year, Balding was presented with the special BAFTA for her work on the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Balding won the Royal Television Society's "Sports Presenter of the Year" in 2003 and “Presenter” in 2012. Also in 2003, she won the "Racing Journalist of the Year Award" and has followed up with the award for "Racing Broadcaster of the Year".

In December 2012, she was awarded the "Biography/Autobiography of the Year" award of the National Book Awards for My Animals and Other Family.

She also won an achievement award from the UK chapter of the Women in Film and Television in 2012 for her coverage of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Balding was awarded the 2012 Sports Journalists' Association's annual British Sports Journalism Award for Sports Broadcaster of the Year (BBC and Channel 4).

In February 2013 she was assessed as being one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. and also won the award for Sports Presenter at the Television and Radio Industries Club Awards.

Her other awards include Attitude Awards TV Personality of the Year 2012, TRIC Sports Presenter of the Year 2013, British Equestrian Federation Outstanding Journalist of the Year 2014 and First Women Awards Lifetime Achievement 2015. Plus awards from Red magazine, Tatler and the Horserace Writers' Association.

Personal life

Balding formalised her relationship with Alice Arnold, then a BBC Radio 4 continuity announcer and newsreader, in September 2006 by entering into a civil partnership. The couple live in Chiswick, London, with their Tibetan terrier, Archie. In April 2015, she and Arnold married in a private ceremony.

On 29 May 2009, Balding announced that she had thyroid cancer. She told the Daily Mail newspaper that she had her thyroid gland removed and would have radioactive iodine treatment in July that year. She promised to be back on television covering the Epsom Derby, by the following Saturday. On 21 August 2009, she announced that the radioactive iodine had been successful with no signs of the cancer having spread.

In July 2010, Balding made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over an article by writer A. A. Gill in The Sunday Times that she felt had mocked her sexuality and appearance and for which the newspaper refused to apologise. The PCC found in her favour, judging that AA Gill had "refer[red] to the complainant's sexuality in a demeaning and gratuitous way". In 2014, she was named in the top 10 on the World Pride Power list.

After Liam Treadwell's Grand National victory on 4 April 2009, Balding interviewed him and made fun of his apparently bad teeth. Both the BBC and Balding apologised by 6 April. Balding later clarified on BBC's Have I Got News For You quiz that she believed Treadwell to have had his teeth "kicked out" by a horse, a common injury suffered by jockeys, apologising again for her error.

In 2014, Balding publicly backed Hacked Off and its campaign towards UK press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable."

Ancestors

Balding's matrilineal great-great-grandparents Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby and Lady Alice Montagu both descended from Henry VII. The earl's lineage can also be traced back to Sir Thomas Frankland. This makes Balding a 11-times-great-granddaughter of Oliver Cromwell.

She is also descended, via Joseph C. Hoagland, from Sarah Rapelje, the first woman of European descent born in what is now New York, to Dutch-settler parents.

Charitable activity

Balding has been a presenter on Sport Relief since its inception in 2002. She also participated in a celebrity edition of The Apprentice to raise money for charity. Sport Relief Does The Apprentice is part of the BBC's annual charity initiative and aired on 12 and 14 March 2008. "The Girls' team", which also included Louise Redknapp, Jacqueline Gold, Kirstie Allsopp and Lisa Snowdon, won the contest, raising over £400,000 from ticket sales and sales on the night of the big event at their shop.

In 2010 Balding became a patron of the British Thyroid Foundation.

In 2015 Balding became an ambassador for Southampton FC's official charity, the Saints Foundation.

She is also patron to a number of other charities including Riding for the Disabled, British Paralympic Association, Diversity Role Models, Retraining of Racehorses and the Jane Tomlinson Appeal. Plus she is Vice-Patron for Injured Jockeys Fund and Helen Rollason Cancer Care.