“We were saying today she could run the race of her life and finish fifth. She has run the race of her life…”
And won the King George. You finish the sentence for him.
Andrew Balding’s top lip is quivering. In recent years he’s built his Park House Stables to be the biggest in the UK. Huge numbers of horses from big owners through his hands. And plenty of winners have followed.
But as he breaks off with applause ringing out and Kalpana returning to the winners’ enclosure, he knows none mattered more than this.
These are career-defining moments. His late father Ian won the mid-summer showpiece with Mill Reef 55 years ago, the horse for whom he’s best remembered and at a time when the King George was the biggest show in town.
Mill Reef wins the 1971 King George
