Balding Still the Queen of Kingsclere

by Emma Berry

When your husband and son are both Classic-winning trainers and your daughter is one of the most famous television broadcasters in the country, it would be easy to be overlooked, and one senses that Lady Emma Balding might actually prefer it that way. 

But it would be folly to underestimate her achievements as the doyenne of Kingsclere Stud, which sits right next door to Park House Stables in the Hampshire village from which the stud takes its name. 

Balding's parents bought both properties in 1953 and her father, Peter Hastings-Bass, trained from Park House Stables until his premature death 11 years later. His assistant Ian Balding, later to become Emma's husband, took over the training licence in 1964 and after almost four decades at the helm, handed the reins to their son Andrew in 2003. Many top-class horses have been trained in Kingsclere during the Baldings' reign, but Mill Reef remains the benchmark against which all are measured. His Derby victory in 1971 put his trainer firmly on the map and the great little colt's legacy–and that of his American owner/breeder Paul Mellon–still echoes down the years in the form of this season's Classic prospect for the Balding team, Elm Park (GB) (Phoenix Reach {Ire}). 

As early as last June, the word from Park House Stables was that the best 2-year-old within its walls was the son of a former resident, Phoenix Reach (Ire) (Alhaarth {Ire}), a terrific flagbearer for both Ian and Andrew Balding with his three Group 1 victories in Canada, Hong Kong and Dubai. At stud, however, he was woefully overlooked by breeders largely by dint of the fact that he committed the 'crime' of being hardy enough to remain in training until he was six and record all his victories over a mile and a half. 

Elm Park duly made his debut at Sandown in a week when many eyes were fixed on Glorious Goodwood. Despite finishing more than five lengths adrift of the Godolphin winner in third place, his debut did not go unnoticed and he started favorite on his next start at Newbury a little over a fortnight later. Since Sandown, no horse has finished in front of Elm Park, with a perfect progression being made from Newbury maiden, to Salisbury listed success and then two consecutive group victories in the G2 Juddmonte Royal Lodge S. and G1 Racing Post Trophy. 

For his first three races, he carried the famous black-and-yellow silks once worn by Mill Reef and bequeathed to Ian Balding by Paul Mellon. They are the colors now borne by every representative of the Kingsclere Racing Club, for whom Elm Park started his racing career before Sheikh Fahad Al Thani's Qatar Racing bought him prior to his first group win. 

“Andrew and [his wife] Anna-Lisa had the idea of starting up the Kingsclere Racing Club and they lease the stud's homebreds from us,” explains Emma Balding. “We tried selling foals and we tried selling yearlings, but it was never going to work for the type of horse we want to produce.” 

She added, “The club is geared up to pay half the costs and it works extremely well, as it has introduced a lot of new people to the yard and to racing. There are 25 members and 50 shares, so we retain half and the understanding is that if anything has to be sold in training, then it is.” 

Only once before had a club horse been sold and that was to Sheikh Fahad. The horse in question was Side Glance (GB) (Passing Glance {GB}), subsequent winner of the G1 Mackinnon S. at Flemington in 2013. 

Apart from both being Group 1 winners bred at Kingsclere Stud and owned by the Sheikh, the other common factor for Side Glance and Elm Park is that their sires were both trained at Park House Stables, with Passing Glance having also been homebred. 

Balding says, “We were lucky that Ian trained some very good horses that went to stud and we had nominations to them. It started with Mill Reef, and Mr. Mellon gave me a breeding right, then there was Selkirk, Robellino and Tagula. They've gradually died out, but we still have Passing Glance and Phoenix Reach.” 

“I have very few mares that can go to Passing Glance as so many of them are related to him,” she noted. “With Phoenix, I've sent really what I could so far and we've been incredibly lucky with him–not just Elm Park, but Rawaki (GB) is a good horse and then Whiplash Willie (GB) was also bred on the stud and he's pretty good. We've been lucky that the stallions we've been able to use have actually been very good stallions. Dashing Blade was another one that we could use and did use–there wasn't anything terribly clever about our matings but now it's a bit more interesting.” 

This modest statement overlooks the nurturing of the families through generations. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of Elm Park. His first five dams all raced from Kingsclere, with his fourth dam, the Cambridgeshire H. winner Siliciana, being the first of the line to have been bred at the stud. 

“Ian had a mare which he'd boarded with my mother to start with and she was an Aggressor mare who had won. He bought her from her owners to go to Silly Season, and she produced Siliciana,” says Balding. 

It's not just the Kingsclere females who dominate Elm Park's pedigree. Silly Season is one of six stallions to have been trained at Park House to appear in the first five generations of his breeding, along with Elm Park's sire Phoenix Reach, damsire Dashing Blade (GB), Selkirk, Elegant Air and Mill Reef, who appears twice. 

As already outlined, it is in fact Passing Glance's family which is prevalent in the Kingsclere paddocks, with his dam, 28-year-old Spurned, still resident in retirement alongside four of her daughters–Victoria Montoya (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), Casual Glance (GB) (Sinndar {Ire}), Inhibition (GB) (Nayef) and Hidden Valley (GB) (Haafhd {GB}). 

“We inherited Spurned as a bad debt,” recalls Balding. “She's by Robellino, who was bought by Ian as a yearling. We were offered a Storm Cat nomination when he first went to stud because he should have come here to be trained, but he failed his swabs so he stayed in America. So Mr. Young offered us a nomination and we sent Spurned out to America to be covered.” 

That mating resulted in her first foal, a filly named Overbrook, who was runner-up in the G3 Cornwallis S. and became the first of seven black-type earners for her dam. 

“Spurned has had an amazing career–her fillies haven't been as good as the colts, but I'm persevering,” says Balding, who was persuaded by Andrew to buy into a different family with the purchase of Averami (GB) (Averti {Ire}) from Al Kazeem's owner/breeder John Deer. Her first five foals are all multiple winners with her two black-type horses, Side Glance and Rawaki, being by those old familiar Kingsclere names of Passing Glance and Phoenix Reach. 

This year, however, the net is being cast a little wider. Averami is visiting Tweenhills new boy Charm Spirit (Fr), while Elm Park's dam Lady Brora (GB) is booked to Intello (Ger). Neither mare is currently in foal. 

“Averami had a colic operation, which meant she was unable to be covered last year. Sheikh Fahad generously gave me two nominations for this year so she will be going to Charm Spirit and I've completely fallen in love with Dunaden (Fr), so I'll be using him as well,” notes Balding. “I do a bit of yearling work for Andrew at the sales because it helps me to see stallions' produce. It also helps that we can train the horses here, as we can be ahead of the game with a stallion that's slightly out of fashion but has produced a horse we really like. 

“For instance, Nayef's price has come right down but we absolutely love him,” she explained. “Andrew loves training them and they are smashing-looking horses so we like to give him the benefit of the doubt because we've been very lucky with him.” 

She adds, “We couldn't afford to breed the way we do if we didn't have the support of Andrew training– we couldn't be so batty. You have to give everything a chance. Andrew's a bit of a dictator once they come into training, but he says I'm a dictator at the other end.” 

With Kingsclere Racing Club being involved in Elm Park only until the end of his 2-year-old season following his sale to Sheikh Fahad, the members now have his unnamed half-brother by Shirocco (Ger) to look forward to among this season's juvenile intake along with a Champs Elysees (GB) half-brother to Side Glance. Balding's sense of humor is revealed in the only one of the homebred 2-year-olds to have been named so far–a colt by Lord Of England, named Lord Huntingdon after her brother, the bloodstock agent and former trainer to the Queen. 

She said, “Lord Huntingdon is out of Marijuana. He's just come into training for the club and he's very good looking, but he's awfully inclined to look at himself in the mirror all the time.” 

“Our club members are a lovely lot,” she continued. “There are five or six social events every year and five or six gallops mornings, and they can also come to the stud to see the babies. They know perfectly well that 2-year-old runners are not going to be particularly plentiful, but the older horses keep everyone entertained. Chesil Beach (GB) has had a good year, so has Intransigent (GB), and there are guaranteed to be at least 12 horses running for the club each year.” 

Balding claims that her worry in using Mellon's famous colors for the Kingsclere Racing Club horses was that they wouldn't have a horse worthy of carrying them. In Elm Park, the colt she describes lovingly as a “laidback dreamy-drawers,” they have already been nobly represented. While he may not be carrying those silks if he lines up for his intended Classic engagement at Epsom, he will still epitomize the sporting endeavors of his forebear Mill Reef and is more than worthy of perpetuating Paul Mellon's great turf legacy.