Ahead of the BOYLE Sports Lockinge Stakes at Newbury , current Trainers' Championship leader Andrew Balding has reflected on his start to the season and how his team is lining up for next week's meeting.
Balding spoke about his three entries in the Lockinge — Blue Bolt , Gladius , and Jonquil — and why Jonquil represents his best chance in the race, along with how the Newbury card looks for his wider string.
The Kingsclere -based trainer also gives his assessment of the Trainers' Championship and what success really looks like across a season at the highest level.
2026 Season
25% Strike Rate, £1.2 million Prize-Money
We are very pleased with the results so far. The horses fit to race have performed really well, so we're thrilled with that.
We've had a couple of setbacks, obviously with injuries, particularly losing Gewan , who was our most exciting three-year-old. That was a major blow.
Billy Jackson-Stops bought him as a breeze-up horse for around £80,000, and he had used machine modelling to help in his decision. He was very well bought.
He was a very, very talented horse. As I say, it was a big blow, but unfortunately these things happen; fortunately very rarely. It's tough for the team, but we had to try and get ourselves together and move on.
Trainers Championship
I don't get too obsessed with the Championship. You measure success by the number of races you win that qualify as big races.
The Racing Post has a stats section, which sets out big races won. What I try to do is to try to win at least one more than we did the years before.
It's not easy because it's a very competitive environment, and there are some very good trainers out there who do their job very well, which doesn't make it easy.
Lockinge Entries
Our Lockinge Team
Actually, it is a race I have never won, so it would be great to do so and mean a lot. My father won it twice.
Blue Bolt won well at the weekend, and she is going to wait and go to Ascot for the Duke of Cambridge Fillies' Group 2. That is the obvious race for her.
Jonquil has some Newbury form, and we'd love to think he'd be competitive in that race. He certainly is an intended runner, and I think Gladius is as well. We are trying to prepare him for the Wolferton Stakes at Royal Ascot . The danger is you win a Listed race beforehand, and you pick up a penalty, which makes it tougher to win at Ascot , which is very much the aim of our operation: to get horses to Ascot with good chances.
He will go there to have a run before Ascot . He is a talented horse, but he probably wants further than that.
Competitive Field
It always is. I'll have a better idea five days before the race when we know what the weather forecast is.
If the ground doesn't turn up testing in any way, Jonquil has got everything it would take to suggest he'd have a good chance in the race.
He won a Greenham , was narrowly beaten in a French Guineas , has won a Celebration Mile , and he had the perfect preparation the other day at Ascot where he won. So, he's not without a chance.
Newbury
Winning At Our Local
It is very important. Newbury is a great place to go racing now. The vibe when you attend meetings is at an all-time high.
They're very good to our staff. They give them badges to attend, so we always get good support there, which is nice. It makes it extra special when we have winners there because most of the guys who work for us would have finished work and gone on to Newbury to support us.
So, from that point of view, it's particularly rewarding when we do have success.
Our Other Entries
We'll have horses in every race. And they've really boosted the prize money for the supporting races, which obviously makes it very attractive to target.
There is a chance Kalpana might run there with a seven-pound penalty in the Aston Park , which we won last year. With Kalpana , we're just looking for somewhere for her to go prior to Ascot . And obviously it's close to home, and if the ground was suitable, it would be perfect.
It's up in the air at the moment, but we might have a filly capable of going for the Trial race there. Ghost Mode was a bit disappointing in the Commonwealth Cup trial at Ascot the other day, but he really is a horse who needs to get some cover, and we're keen to try him again at a higher level, so he'll probably go for the Carnarvon Stakes .
We're likely to have a runner in the London Gold Cup ; that's always a good race, and we've got three or four candidates at the moment. That'll work itself out in the process of the next few work mornings. A horse called Berkshire Whisper in the six-furlong handicap who ran really well on All Weather Finals Day and ran a very good race last time out. And he ran well in the Carnarvon last year, so we know the track suits him.
Spanish Voice , who's also won well at Newmarket at the weekend, might well go for the Mile handicap, and then we've got a couple of candidates for the three-year-old handicap at the end of the day. So, we're going to be busy during the day if everything works out.
Tracks & Trainers
Ascot Pulling From RCA
I'm not politically minded at all, so I don't really know the details. But obviously the committee at Ascot really understands racing, and I'm sure they wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for the good of the sport long term.
George Boughey
Amazing. George is a fellow Southampton fan, so I've always got a soft spot for him.
He's done incredibly with next to no horses, and he's risen to be one of the biggest trainers in Newmarket in a very short space of time. And I wish him all the luck in the world.
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