Desert Island Discs - Clare Balding

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the broadcaster Clare Balding.

The BBC TV coverage of London's 2012 Olympics was her triumph and much like Team GB she'd been in training for her big moment for quite a while.

She's worked on five Olympic Games, four Paralympics, three Winter Olympics and a great deal of horse racing. It's on the turf that's she's most at home - her father was a champion racehorse trainer and for a number of years she herself was a leading amateur flat jockey.

The first pony she ever rode, as a toddler, was a gift from the Queen; she went to public school and Cambridge but her life hasn't been an entirely easy ride. She has coped with thyroid cancer, being forcibly "outed" by the tabloid press and in her own words being "a disappointment from the moment" she was born.

She says, "This may sound nauseating but I'm a very happy person. I love my work, I love my life and I'm told by those who know and love me that it's a bit like living with Tigger".

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Published on Sunday, 1st December 2013.

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