RACING continues to miss an on-screen involvement from Clare Balding.

For so long she was the BBC’s face of racing. Her passion for the sport, and her supreme broadcasting skills, were lost to racing when coverage moved from that channel.

With the move came change, and Clare’s talents were snapped up elsewhere.

Her love for racing has not diminished, and she still takes an interest. After all, her brother Andrew is a multi-Group 1 winning trainer in Britain, her mother Lady Emma is a successful breeder, and her father Ian is most famously remembered as the man who guided the career of the brilliant Mill Reef.

“I’m on the committee at Epsom, so I certainly keep an eye on anything that is likely to be running in the Oaks and the Derby, and I go racing there as much as I can. I keep an eye on racing without being obsessed. I would know if Andrew had a runner, or a horse my mother bred was running.”

Now that she is able to see the sport from a different angle, I wonder if racing is doing enough to be inclusive. Clare is adamant. “I think that there’s quite a lot of lip service. Luckily, there are good people who are trying to agitate for real action, and I think we’ve got a very good new chief executive at the BHA [Julie Harrington] and that’s exciting. I think she does want to make changes.

“I get most disappointed with the lack of interest generally, and I don’t think racing has been keenly enough aware of this. Correspondents are basically losing their jobs; the BBC doesn’t have a racing correspondent anymore. That speaks to a much wider lack of interest, and the general public would struggle to name a single horse.

“Then Rachael [Blackmore], a story like that breaks through. That’s why we really need to celebrate her success. Then we need to decide where we are going, what next? Most disappointing, I find, is with a lot of racecourses here [in Britain] there is a lack of engagement with their local community. Local people don’t see the racecourse as something that is connected to them. That’s something we really need to address.

Better courses

“Some racecourses are better at it. Chester is always packed. York is really good on crowds. Independent racecourses are very aware of this, and are doing a fantastic job. I don’t think, necessarily, that everyone of working together on this one. I think there’s lots of different factions, and that has always been racings problem.

“Then, obviously, we know that there are negative stories.”

Speaking about the furore and fallout from the photograph taken of Gordon Elliott, Clare is keen that more should have been done, and needs to happen. “I don’t think it was handled terribly well on Gordon’s part, and equally no one from racing’s PR machine, who are all paid a bloody fortune, got hold of him and said, ‘look this is how we should do it’.

“Leading up to this I don’t think we’ve ever done enough on the stuff that racing does well. We’ve got this massive screen at every racecourse and they show you betting odds clearly. They don’t show you films of foals; they don’t show you the training of racehorses. They don’t show you a horse being rehabilitated; they don’t show you the lads working in yards every day, loving their horses.

The journey

“They don’t show you the journey, and you don’t see it on mainstream television. My one desire in racing would be to get a series commissioned that shows a year in the life of racing, including the heart-breaking stories. The trouble with what Gordon did is that it was no way close to anyone’s reality. We don’t do that.

“You have got to be allowed to make mistakes and come back from them. The golfing world didn’t half forgive Tiger [Woods] when he was winning at Augusta. It can be done. We make mistakes, but understanding why we’ve made them, and trying to explain why you might have made them, is important.”

Championing women in sport

THE importance of sport in the life and work of Clare Balding is evident, and she has very firm views on the participation of women. Almost a decade ago she appeared before a parliamentary committee about the issue. I questioned Clare about whether she feels she has been a trailblazer for women in sport, and whether things have improved in recent years?

“I wouldn’t say trailblazer, because it’s not as if I’ve been a competitor at all, but I have certainly tried to champion women’s sport, and the coverage of women in sport. In doing so I have tried to show that not only are they capable enough, but they deserve better coverage and reward.

“I get asked a lot about Rachael winning the Grand National, and there are a couple of points that I keep making. One, being leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival was actually harder, and a greater achievement. Two, she was the first female professional National Hunt jockey in Ireland for a long, long time.

“That to me says a lot, because you get someone as good and as talented as Nina Carberry or Katie Walsh, both from racing families very similar to mine, both families which said to them ‘don’t go professional’. In a way, that is from a knowledge base that they would not be given the opportunity to ride good horses in good races.

“Like me, being 26 and saying yes to presenting racing on the BBC, for Rachel, who didn’t come from a racing family, there wasn’t any of that ingrained protection. Now, to have the support of Henry [de Bromhead] who gives her rides on good horses in good races, that’s what changes things. Actually, I think on Grand National day she was one of seven different females to ride winners in Britain.

Dilemma

“I know that there is a bit of a dilemma in sport in that some people feel that there are women in racing, particularly, getting greater recognition. For example, Hollie Doyle made the shortlist for sports personality of the year in 2020, but she wasn’t champion jockey.

“However, she was achieving things that no woman had done before, and in other gender-segregated sports she would have been champion by a mile. I hope that what that does for racing as a whole is promoted.

“For Rachael, I really want to help get her on the list for international sports personality of the year overseas, because sadly she doesn’t qualify for the main award here. I would think in Ireland she will win every award going. This is a great period of transition.

“When I started in sports broadcasting there were probably only four or five women on television covering sports. It’s more life 55 now. Now that’s really, really strong growth.”

A book for adolescents – and for you

THE original context for this interview with Clare Balding was the recent publication of her latest book, Fall Off, Get Back On, Keep Going. The book is aimed at an early teenage audience, but I think that is just one market for the volume. As a guidebook for adults, and how to live your life, it would be a very useful bedside companion.

When I suggest this to Clare, she is not surprised. She has heard similar comments before. “Absolutely. A guy at the event I was at today thought it was a business manual. He said it would be very applicable to everybody, given what they have gone through in the last year.

“I came up with the idea for it, and it’s not an original idea, but everyone comes at things from a different angle. I wanted to come at it from my perspective and my life experience. I wanted to use sports people because I think they are a great example of bounce-back-ability, having to constantly deal with failure, essentially, and how to get over it.

Practical tips

“Speaking, as I do, to lots of children in schools, it struck me that this is a generation with a lot of stuff to try and compute. How can you give practical tips about how to act in a certain situation? There is some quite advance stuff in there, about visualisation for example. A 10-year-old can do it too.

“How do you support your friend? What does kindness mean? I think it is listening, engaging with someone, concentrating on them and giving them your time. I do think this is relevant for any age group, but in a way I wrote it for the age group who don’t get these kind of books.

“You know, as adults we have a million self-help titles we could dip into, and great columns like yours [The Irish Field health pages] that do help. I know a lot of teachers are using the book now as a teaching aid, which is great.

“With this book I took way more care of it, and rewrote it four or five times because I wanted it to be as polished as I could make it. You know, I am not a teacher, a parent or a psychologist, but I do understand the way kids think, because I don’t think I’ve grown up that much!”

An author

Given that her first book was published less than a decade ago, where does being an author fit into her career hierarchy? “When I was at Cambridge I was desperate to be an author. The trouble with reading English is that you read so much good stuff and realise you can’t be Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, so why would you bother?

“Then it’s convincing yourself that maybe you do have something to offer. I would say to girls now who want to be jockeys that you are not all going to be Rachael Blackmore, but give it a go. You will get so much pleasure and enjoyment out of what you can be, and what’s the best for you.

“There are bits of my life and experience in this book – like the title. That comes from my father telling me and Andrew that we had to fall off a hundred times before we could become a proper jockey. When you stop being frightened of falling, and actually embrace it and try to roll with it, you are less likely to fall off.”

Clare Balding on:

An important life message

“For all the stuff that we worry about, people are an awful lot kinder and more supportive than we ever think they are going to be. For those that are not, it is pretty easy to walk away from them.

“When anyone, and kids in particular at a certain age, is quite vulnerable and might make an extreme decision on how they cope or don’t cope, it is vital to communicate and give people the opportunity to help you.”

Something learned from her new book

“I learned that it’s awfully easy to say things; it’s a little more difficult to put then into practice. I have definitely become better at being in the moment. While we have this conversation, this is all that matters to me.

“It’s important to be patient, because if you are stuck in traffic, you are stuck in traffic. It will work itself out. Enjoying the present moment is really valuable.”

Separation during the pandemic

“That was so difficult over the year. I couldn’t go home for Christmas because London suddenly went to Stage 4 and that was really hard. My dad’s getting on now and not in the best of health, and his memory is shot. Mum’s got a lot on her plate looking after him.

“Alice [Arnold] my partner and I were in charge of the weekly quiz. It was important to have that shared experience.”

Social media

“I am really disciplined about it. When I’m doing a major event I won’t look at my mentions because I don’t need to know if they hate my hair or don’t like my outfit.

“It’s not relevant to the show that I am presenting. If it doesn’t contribute to the show I don’t need it.

“I would say to young athletes to be really careful. You don’t need the praise, and you don’t need the criticism either. You need stuff that helps you compete better, and that won’t be found from strangers on social media.”

Relaxing

“I am generally quite a relaxed person. I don’t need to switch off; I don’t do the high/low thing.

“I love playing golf with Alice, friends and family, and I walk a lot. I love hanging out with Andrew’s kids and I like watching sport.”

A bucket list

“I would love to set up some form of a not-for-profit business that helps female athletes to transition after they retire. That is my big project.

“I’ve also got lots of countries I want to visit, sports events I want to see. I want to come to the Dublin Horse Show, go to an All-Ireland final, and go to the Olympics as a spectator rather than a presenter.”