Gerald Matthews Balding (1903 – 16 September 1957) was a British champion
polo
Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...
player.
Biography
He was born in
Leicestershire
Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
, England, in 1903. He had two brothers who also played polo,
Ivor Godfrey Balding
Ivor Godfrey Balding (23 May 1908 – 20 January 2005) was a British champion polo player, thoroughbred farm manager and Horse trainer, racehorse trainer.
Biography Breeding farm manager
Ivor Balding had two brothers who also played polo, Gerald ...
and
John Barnard "Barney" Balding
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
. His sons,
Gerald Barnard "Toby" Balding and
Ian Balding
Ian Balding (born 7 November 1938) is a retired British horse trainer. He is the son of the polo player and racehorse trainer Gerald Matthews Balding and the younger brother of trainer Toby Balding. Ian Balding was born in the US, but his famil ...
, were both thoroughbred racehorse trainers in Britain.
He remains the United Kingdom's last 10 goal polo player since 1939. Of the state of polo in England in the 1930s, he said, "Polo is not taken so seriously as in America or Argentina."
The Gerald Balding Cup is held annually at Cirencester Park Polo Club in his memory. In the 1920s he played in England, America and India. In 1930, 1936 and 1939, he played for England against the US for the Westchester Cup and was field captain of the English team in 1939. He was a brilliant striker of the ball and was rated as one of the finest players ever seen.
He died on 16 September 1957 in London, England.
[
His granddaughter is broadcaster and journalist ]Clare Balding
Clare Victoria Balding (born 29 January 1971) is an English broadcaster, journalist, and author. She currently presents for BBC Sport, Channel 4, BT Sport, is the current president of the Rugby Football League (RFL) and formerly presented the ...
.
Publication
*Gerald Balding, "Polo as the English Play it," ''The Sportsman'', September 1937, 36.
See also
*List of significant families in British horse racing
This is a list of male line families (i.e. those families that share a surname) of which at least three members have gained some notability in horse racing in Great Britain.
Arnull
* Sam Arnull, jockey; younger brother of
* John Arnull, jockey; ...
References
1903 births
1957 deaths
Gerald Balding
Sportspeople from Leicestershire
International Polo Cup
British polo players
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