He is the son of the polo player and racehorse trainer Gerald Matthews Balding and the younger brother of trainer Toby Balding. A countrywoman through and through, Clare was raised at the Kingsclere racing stables in Hampshire owned by her father Ian, the trainer of Derby and Arc … Clare Balding grew up in a rather unusual household. Clare Balding Andrew’s elder sister Clare grew up with him at Kingsclere and, like Andrew, was involved with horses from a young age. Her father a champion trainer, she shared her life with more than 100 thoroughbred racehorses, mares, foals and ponies, as well as an ever-present pack of boxers and lurchers. She was a successful amateur jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990, but nowadays is well known as one of Britain’s leading broadcasters, presenting a wide range of sports and other programmes, including Channel 4 Racing. As a toddler she would happily ride … Ian Balding was born in the US, but his family returned to the UK in 1945. As ubiquitous TV presenter Clare Balding promotes her first children's book, The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop, she has been given a timely reminder of the dangers of the equestrian world. Hart and Balding are in fact tenth-cousins, sharing a nine-times-great-grandfather in Sir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet. He was educated at Marlborough College and Millfield school in Somerset. This was “Dad” as portrayed in Clare Balding’s bestselling book about the horses, dogs and humans that enlivened her childhood years. Balding was educated at Downe House in Berkshire, where she was Head Girl and a contemporary of comedian Miranda Hart. Clare Victoria Balding was born on 29 January 1971, the daughter of Ian Anthony Balding and the Hon Emma Alice Mary Hastings-Bass, whose father Peter Hastings-Bass (1920-1964) trained race horses at Kingsclere, Berkshire, near Highclere Castle where Downton Abbey was filmed.