Speaking exclusively with BOYLE Sports , Andrew Balding reflects on one of the great honours of his career: training for the late Queen Elizabeth II , and now continuing that royal connection with King Charles and the Queen .
Balding also speaks about the Balding family's remarkable sporting legacy, his son Jonno 's emergence as a high-quality rugby player at Gloucester , and his sister Clare 's appearance on Celebrity Traitors.
From the pressures of training royal runners to the pride of watching his family succeed, Balding gives a warm and candid insight into life beyond the yard.
Royal Connections
Training For The Queen
It was an amazing privilege to train for the Queen . She was very knowledgeable, very interested on a daily basis in racing. It was one of the great privileges of my life to be able to talk to her on a regular basis.
She was an amazing lady, so widely well-respected, and such an important part of the racing world to have her as your flag bearer.
Filling The Void
I've been really honoured again to train for the King and Queen now. They show a very keen interest in it, and they're very keen to try and get horses that could be successful, albeit on a smaller scale, which is understandable.
Added Pressure
You always put pressure on yourself, whoever owns the horse. We all want horses to run well and win, but running well, particularly when there's a lot of people watching them, is more important.
You don't really want Royal Runners falling out the back of the TV screen. So, we're trying to avoid that if we can.
The Balding Family
Jonno
It's been great for the whole family. We followed him and supported him. He's not even halfway there yet in terms of what he potentially could achieve. It's a very important development time for him at the moment because he's only 18 and he's a second row forward.
Physically he needs to develop, but it's been really exciting watching it. Gloucester Rugby have done a fabulous job looking after him.
Competitive Environment
I think very much. He's surrounded by professional sportsmen here, not just Balding family members, with the environment we have here. And we're lucky to train for a lot of professional sports people as well.
So, he's been exposed to it from an early age. He's not been short of advice and help.
Clare Balding
The Traitors
I watched a bit of it. First, I'm not a celebrity. And no, I probably wouldn't want to go on it. I think she found the whole experience interesting. It made for good TV, didn't it?
It is an interesting concept, but I don't think she felt entirely comfortable surrounded by deceit. I don't think it's something she's used to.
World Overlap?
Not so much professionally, but obviously we see a lot of each other. She's just a casual supporter really. I think she's still on the board at Epsom .
She takes a huge interest in the sport; she follows our runners when she can.
The Balding Gene
We got lucky, and we got a head start. We got a lot of opportunities given to us when we were younger, and so from that point of view, we're incredibly lucky.
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