Clare Balding

During the show, Balding discovered her great-great-great-grandfather was Joseph Hoagland who, in 1866, founded the Royal Baking Powder Company with his brother, Cornelius.

Through pioneering use of mass advertising campaigns, they contributed to building one of the largest producers of baking powder in the U.S.

Balding's paternal grandfather Gerald Barnard Balding Sr., was a 10-goal polo player who immigrated to America to play polo in the 1920s when he was in his 20s.

Outbound passenger lists on a genealogy website include Balding's grandfather and it was at this time that Gerald Balding Sr met and later married the American heiress, Eleanor Hoagland.

Clare Victoria Balding (born 29 January 1971) is an English broadcast journalist and author.

She currently presents for BBC Sport, Channel 4 and BT Sport and formerly presented the religious programme Good Morning Sunday on BBC Radio 2.

Balding was appointed as the 30th president of the Rugby Football League, serving a two-year term until December 2022.

Clare Balding was born on 29 January 1971, the daughter of Ian Balding and his wife Emma Hastings-Bass.

She was privately educated at the independent Downe House School in Berkshire, where she was head girl and a contemporary of comedian Miranda Hart (Hart and Balding are in fact tenth-cousins, sharing a nine-times-great-grandfather in Sir William Leveson-Gower, 4th Baronet).

Balding applied to read law at Christ's College, Cambridge, but failed her interview and realised that law was not what she most wanted to do.

She later successfully applied to Newnham College, Cambridge, and read English.

Balding has close family links to horse racing: her father, Ian Balding, trained Mill Reef, 1971 winner of The Derby, Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes; and her younger brother, Andrew Balding, trained Casual Look, the winner of the 2003 Epsom Oaks.

The latter win led to a very emotional post-race interview with her brother.

Her uncle Toby Balding trained winners in the Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle.

From 1988 to 1993, Balding was a leading amateur flat jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990.

While at university she was President of the Cambridge Union Society in Easter 1992 and graduated in 1993 with a 2:1 honours degree.

Balding became a trainee with BBC National Radio in 1994, working on 5 Live, Radio 1 (presenting the sport on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show), Radio 2 and Radio 4.

In June 1995, she made her debut as a television presenter, introducing highlights of Royal Ascot.

Clare worked on BBC Radio 5 Live's Wimbledon coverage from 1995 to 2014.

There has been some criticism of her in this role, due to her lack of knowledge and enthusiasm.

The following year she began presenting live, and in December 1997 she became the BBC's lead horse racing presenter after the retirement of Julian Wilson.

In his book "Some You Win" Wilson revealed he had a strained relationship with Balding and that led to him retiring in 1997.

Balding has presented coverage of Crufts for the BBC from 2004 to 2009 and for Channel 4 since 2013.

She also presents the walking programme Ramblings for BBC Radio 4, where she walks and talks with one or more devotees of a particular route, area or activity and has, for example, walked sections of the Lyke Wake Walk and Dales Way for the programme.

Balding has fronted coverage of the Grand National, infamously humiliating Liam Treadwell, Grand National winning jockey in 2009 on Mon Mome.

Balding has reported from seven Olympic Games, for BBC Radio in Atlanta and for BBC Television in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

She has presented five Paralympic Games, the Winter Olympics from Salt Lake City, Turin, Vancouver, Sochi Pyeongchang and Beijing as well as the Commonwealth Games from Melbourne, Delhi, Glasgow, Gold Coast and the most recent games held in Birmingham in 2022.

She was the face of the BBC's rugby league coverage, having presented Grandstand from a Rugby League Challenge Cup semi-final, and having been so impressed by the vibrancy and physical challenge of the sport she asked to cover further rugby league events.

She was the last person to present Sunday Grandstand.

She also presents the Lord Mayor's Show as well as other live events for the BBC, such as Trooping the Colour, New Year's Eve and lead commentary for the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

She has also presented coverage of The Boat Race for the BBC since 2010, including the first live coverage of the women's Boat Race on the Tideway in 2015.

In 2010, Balding presented a BBC TV series called Britain By Bike that retraced some of Harold Briercliffe's British cycle tours.

In August 2011 Balding joined BBC's Countryfile, temporarily replacing Julia Bradbury while Bradbury was on maternity leave, co-hosting the show with Matt Baker.

Her memoir My Animals and Other Family, which documents her life growing up in a racing yard, won the National Book Award for "Autobiography of the Year" in 2012.

Bradbury returned in February 2012.

Furthermore, her maternal grandfather was the trainer Peter Hastings-Bass and her maternal uncle William Hastings-Bass, 17th Earl of Huntingdon was once trainer to Queen Elizabeth II.

Her maternal grandmother, Priscilla Hastings, was descended from the Earls of Derby and was one of the first women elected to membership of the Jockey Club.

Balding's well-documented aristocratic lineage on her mother's side can be seen in records that TheGenealogist has identified in research.

Researchers found Balding's maternal line reveals that she is the great-granddaughter of Sir Malcolm Bullock, a Member of Parliament, whose sexuality had to be kept hidden because homosexuality was illegal in Britain.

His sexuality was investigated in her episode of the Who Do You Think You Are? programme first broadcast in July 2017.