English broadcaster and writer Clare Balding was BOTD in 1971. Born in Kingsclere, Hampshire to an upper-middle class family with aristocratic connections, she grew up in a horse-obsessed environment (amusingly recounted in her 2012 memoir My Animals and Other Family). Balding’s father, uncles and grandfather were renowned horse trainers, and she became an amateur flat jockey and competitive rider in her teens. After studying at Cambridge University, she became a sports broadcaster for BBC Radio. She made her television debut in 1995, presenting highlights from the Royal Ascot, later becoming the BBC’s lead horse racing presenter. She became an unlikely broadcasting star during the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics, leading the BBC’s television coverage with jolly-hockey-sticks enthusiasm and an impressive knowledge of sports history. She also won praise for her commentary of the otherwise dismal Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the same year. Now a fixture of BBC sports broadcasting, she also presents coverage of the Crufts dog show, the Lord Mayor’s Show and Trooping the Colour. Her memoir became a bestseller, followed by a sequel Walking Home: My Family and other Ramblings. She has been prominently involved in promoting women’s participation in sport and supports a number of charities for disabled and injured sportspeople. Balding came out publicly as a lesbian in 2003, and married her long-term partner Alice Arnold in 2015.