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End of an era for me, and a few more of my generation, I suspect. Toby Balding was up with the big names as far as talent goes, if not horse numbers…Fred Winter, Fred Rimell, Ryan Price, Fulke Walwyn, plus the northern guys I revered like Neville Crump and Ken Oliver…some very happy memories of younger days.
By all accounts, Toby was a fine man too.
Toby Balding was quite simply an outstanding person who was always prepared to give his time and experience to help others. I remember visiting his yard back in the 1970’s and it was very obvious that he knew everything about each horse and he had a great collaborative relationship with his staff. For some unknown reason I have a memory of him in the bar chatting with an owner on the final day’s racing ever at lowly Wye (Kent) racecourse. For him every race counted, not just those at the likes of Cheltenham and Aintree.
A true Gentleman , always a smile and a chat when we met ,I remember when he was going through a really lean patch , he could not get any of his horses to fire …when I asked him about it , he smiled and said , all stables get the bug every so often , we will sit it out , we know what to do …and then in the next sentence invited me down for a game of tennis
What a man…he simply exuded class
Rip
Ricky
One of my favourite trainers when I first got interested in racing, he always seemed such a nice man as well as a great trainer.
RIP
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