"It's really in the lap of the gods" - Balding 2/1 to hold Aidan at bay in Champion Trainer battle

Jon Vine

Editor

Last updated: Fri 16 Oct 2026 12:53

Jon Vine 1 hour ago

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Andrew Balding leads the trainers' championship heading into British Champions Day at Ascot
Balding has achieved 180 winners and over £8.7m in prize money, but Aidan O'Brien remains the bookmaker's favorite
Key races involving top horses will determine whether Balding can hold off O'Brien for the title

Andrew Balding poses at Newbury Racecourse. (Getty)

It's been 55 years since his father, Ian, was crowned Champion Trainer, and now Andrew Balding will enter British Champions Day with a lead in the title race.

Andrew Balding has enjoyed an incredible season, notching up 180 winners and over £8.7m in prize money. Balding will travel to Ascot on Saturday with a £100k lead over reigning champion trainer Aidan O'Brien, who celebrated just his 26th winner on British soil this season when Darkness Falls won the Dewhurst last weekend.

In the build-up to Saturday's seasonal finale, the bookies make Andrew Balding a 2/1 shot to end the day as Champion Trainer. Aidan O'Brien, on the other hand, is a 1/3 shot, given the strong hand he's set to play on British Champions Day.

"Aidan has set such an incredibly high standard and is going into essentially the most important meeting for the title with a stronger hand than us, so we're not expecting anything," Andrew Balding told the press on Thursday.

"I'm just very proud of our achievements this year and to have got as close as we have to him. He's a trainer of a generation, or generations, and has set an extraordinarily high bar.

"With the amount of prize-money we've won, we might have won a championship in any other year, but Aidan is just extraordinary."

"We've got what we've got and we can't do any more, so it's really in the lap of the gods now. Hopefully a bit of luck comes our way. You never know."

Kalpana could be instrumental in Balding's hopes of winning the Champion Trainer title for the first time. The King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner has won the last two renewals of the Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes and is currently priced at 11/8 to beat O'Brien's Minnie Hauk and win the £300k first prize for a third time.

See The Fire has been supplemented into the same race in the hope that she can place behind her market-topping stablemate. Mount Atlas and Marvelman will take their chances in the Long Distance Cup and the Champions Sprint respectively, before Mister Winston runs in the card-closing Balmoral Handicap.

Aidan O'Brien's best chances on the card lie in the two most high-profile races. Irish 2000 Guineas winner Gstaad has jumped to the head of the betting for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Constitution River will then take on Calandagan and Ombudsman in a thrilling renewal of the Champion Stakes.

Queenstown and Amelia Earhart deputise for the absent Scandinavia in the Long Distance Cup. Sugar Island joins Minnie Hauk in the Fillies & Mares Stakes. Confucius will represent Ballydoyle in the opening Conditions Stakes, but O'Brien has no runners in either the Champion Sprint or the Balmoral.