Racing: Balding has Classic pedigree to maintain family standards

Faces To Follow In 2003: With fatherly guidance close at hand a young trainer is poised to continue a tradition of excellence

Andrew Balding's great grandfather was a trainer of racehorses, as were both grandfathers. His two uncles were in a similar trade, as most famously was his father, Ian. The poor lad did not have a chance.

Only now, however, four days into Balding's official tenure at the realm of Park House, just outside Kingsclere, are we becoming aware of the long-term nature of this project. Part of the handover from father to son has included the adjustment to paddock sheets. The first of Ian Anthony Balding's initials is being unpicked from the sheets as we speak, further proof that AB has been laid out for this assignment for some time.

There has been no regicide. This will be a transition based on the Easterby model, father to son, Peter to Tim. There will be a change to the letterhead, but virtually no tinkering to the operation itself.

Andrew Balding may now be, for racecard purposes, the man in charge, but it may be difficult for visitors to Kingsclere to understand this hierarchy.

"Dad will be up on his hack in the mornings and we'll have done all the worklists before the barking of orders starts, which we'll do together," Andrew says. "Kingsclere is a big old place to run from an estate point of view and I've no intention of getting involved there, but that's something he's always done.

"And, as far as race-planning and training programmes are concerned, I'll certainly be taking his advice. He'll be au fait with everything that's going on.

"I'm certainly not guv'nor [with the staff] here. I might be called a couple of guv'nors while they're taking the piss but that won't last long. I've always been Andrew to them and there is only one guv'nor round here."

Guv'nor is currently testing himself against the slopes of Gstaad. "He's probably enjoying the fact that he doesn't have to go to Pontefract on a Monday from now on," Andrew says. "I'll be the one to flog up and down the country to the race meetings while he'll have a bit more time to play some golf in the afternoons."

Andrew Balding's accession is similar to his father's in that he comes to this throne as a young man. Balding snr was only three months into his posting as assistant to Peter Hastings when the trainer died. At 25 he became master of one of the most powerful yards in the land.

This has been Ian Balding's kingdom on the edge of the Hampshire Downs for just shy of 40 years, though his face does not betray the years. Andrew has the slow-burning genes of his father and could pass for plenty less than his 30 years.

On the way up he has worked for his uncle, Toby Balding, also an avuncular figure to most in racing, before spending two summers with Jack and Lynda Ramsden, for some the Bonnie and Clyde of the sport.

"Of course, as far as English racing is concerned you could not have a better education than Andrew's at the Ramsdens," Ian Balding says. "Most of our racing is about winning handicaps, so that is where you get the best education. This is where the training with Jack Ramsden might hopefully come in handy."

By 1999, though, Andrew was back at Kingsclere, the former seat of John Porter, who sent out 23 Classic winners, including the Triple Crown winners of 1886 and 1899, Ormonde and Flying Fox. While his father nursed the horses in the yards named after those two champions, Andrew supervised a similar number, around 50 thoroughbreds, in the Mill Reef and Selkirk yards, named after his father's 1971 Derby winner and top miler.

During that time there were big winners trained in the father's name that were the fruits of the son's labour. They included Firebreak in the 2001 Mill Reef Stakes and Distant Prospect and Palua, who finished first and second in the 2001 Cesarewitch.

However, three days ago, Andrew Balding was officially back to nought when Duchamp fired the starting pistol on his training career in a handicap chase at Cheltenham. That ended in nought as well as the six-year-old unseated Tony McCoy at the 10th fence. Perhaps it might be time for the tyro trainer's first change of jockey.

There will be further runners in the next few days, most notably Voice Mail, who is expected to go close at Lingfield on Tuesday, but the essential lift-off is being reserved for the Flat season proper, starting with the Lincoln Handicap, for which Park House has eight entries.

"The way things have worked out we're not going to have a flying start, but, as long as the horses stay healthy, we should have a very good year," Balding says. "We've got some very nice horses and plenty of them, plenty of ammunition. Rimrod and Casual Look both appear exciting three-year-old prospects. And then there's Speed Cop as well."

Indeed, speed is of the essence as Andrew Balding understands he will be expected to deliver quickly from a family which is hardly a monument to underachievement. His father apart, there is always the sibling comparison with his sister, Clare, the skilled broadcaster.

"But I've been very lucky because all the owners have been very supportive," he says. "It has helped as far as they are concerned that Dad is very much going to be still here and helping out. That will make the transition all the easier.

"It is quite strange seeing my name by the horse in the racecard. It's exciting as well."