Balmoral Handicap Preview, Tips, Runners & Trends (Champions Day)

Updated: 5758 Horse Racing

The Balmoral Handicap, a 1-mile race at Ascot's Champions Day, offers insights into past winners, trainer and jockey records, and trends. Explore the history and statistics of this prestigious handicap event to gain valuable racing knowledge.

Balmoral Handicap Preview, Tips, Runners & Trends (Champions Day)
In this article: Preview
Andy Powell Content Editor

Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.

2025 Balmoral Handicap Preview

The Balmoral Handicap is the only handicap on Champions Day at Ascot which takes place in October. Established in 2014, the 2019 renewal will be just the sixth time this race has been staged. The race is a Class 2 which is open to 3yo+ and is run over a straight mile with a maximum field of 20.

Balmoral Handicap Information:

If you are interested in other predictions at Ascot then head over to the Ascot tips page to see which runners are being supported by the OLBG racing tipsters and also compare those predictions to the runners that make the trend shortlist when added below. You may also be interested in other preview blogs that we have packed full of information, head down to the Schedule for British Champions Day at Ascot section for links to these.

How competitive is the Balmoral Handicap market? When looking at the over-rounds for the last 11 renewals, the most competitive market was in 2021 when the race had an over-round of 125%. The race in 2014 was a race that was most in the bookie's favour with an over-round of 144%, whilst on average over the last 11 renewals of the Balmoral Handicap, the over-round has been 134%, which means the bookie expects to pay out £100 for every £134 which is bet.

Balmoral Handicap Trends:

Looking at the future form, is the winner worth following next time out? From the past 11 if you had followed the winner of the Balmoral Handicap next time out then you would have backed a total of 2 winners. Backing all 10 runners who have been out since to win at SP next time out, would have returned an LSP of -6.98. Ahead of the 2025 Balmoral Handicap why not head over to the racing predictions for tips on other races today?

When looking over the past 11 renewals, a time of 1:39.70 was set by Yuften in 2016, which is the quickest time over that period, the runner was trained by Roger Charlton and ridden by Andrea Atzeni. The slowest winning time was set in 2023 when The Gatekeeper won in a time of 1:47.11, booked to ride was Joe Fanning by the trainer Charlie Johnston.

These are the top three quickest-run Balmoral Handicap over the last 11 renewals:

  1. Yuften (1:39.70) in 2016
  2. Musaddas (1:40.84) in 2015
  3. Aldaary (1:42.64) in 2021

Balmoral Handicap Past Winners

Here are the Balmoral Handicap past winners for the last 10 renewals. Each row details the year of the race, the horse which won along with the age & weight of the horse. Also detailed is the stall where the horse came from and the total number of runners in the race. The horse's trainer and the jockey at the time of winning the Balmoral Handicap are also displayed, along with the starting price at which the horse was sent off.

YearHorse (Drawn)Info
2024
1:46.59
Carrytheone (GB)
7yo 9-6 (5 of 20) 14/1
Christophe Soumillon
Michael Bell (GB)
2023
1:47.11
The Gatekeeper (IRE)
4yo 8-12 (4 of 20) 25/1
Joe Fanning
Charlie Johnston (GB)
2022
1:44.69
Shelir (IRE)
6yo 9-5 (11 of 20) 80/1
Jason Watson
David O'Meara (GB)
2021
1:42.64
Aldaary (GB)
3yo 9-6 (11 of 20) 7/2
Jim Crowley
William Haggas (GB)
2020
1:45.03
Njord (IRE)
4yo 9-5 (4 of 18) 15/2
Tom Marquand
Mrs John Harrington (IRE)
2019
1:45.80
Escobar (IRE)
5yo 9-6 (21 of 20) 16/1
Adam Kirby
David O'Meara (GB)
2018
1:43.50
Sharja Bridge (GB)
4yo 9-5 (8 of 20) 8/1
James Doyle
Roger Varian (GB)
2017
1:45.91
Lord Glitters (FR)
4yo 9-3 (3 of 20) 3/1F
Daniel Tudhope
David O'Meara (GB)
2016
1:39.70
Yuften (GB)
5yo 9-1 (1 of 19) 12/1
Andrea Atzeni
Roger Charlton (GB)
2015
1:40.84
Musaddas (GB)
5yo 8-2 (4 of 20) 7/1
Edward Greatrex (5lbs)
Saeed bin Suroor (GB)

Where have the winning runners come from?

Here are the countries where the winning trainers of the Balmoral Handicap have been based:

  • GB: 10 winners with an additional 33 placings from 210 runners
  • IRE: 1 winner with an additional 0 placings from 13 runners
  • NOR: 0 winners with an additional 0 placings from 1 runner

Balmoral Handicap Trainer Statistics

The leading trainer in the Balmoral Handicap over the last 11 renewals is David O'Meara who has won the race three times with those three winners coming from Lord Glitters (2017), Escobar (2019) and Shelir (2022). Two trainers have not had the best of times over the last 11 renewals in the Balmoral Handicap, John Gosden has sent a total of 11 runners to the race without recording any wins whilst Andrew Balding has sent out 11 without a winner.

Here are some of the top Balmoral Handicap trainer statistics over the last 11 renewals (R = Runners, W = Winners, P = Places including winners, Win LSP is based on 1pt Win and EW LSP is based on 0.5pt Win & 0.5pt Place):

TrainerR-W-PWinEW
David O'Meara27-3-6+75.00+45.64
William Haggas11-1-3-6.50-4.81
Roger Varian6-1-1+3.00+0.00
Marcus Tregoning4-1-1+17.00+9.50
Roger Charlton2-1-1+11.00+6.50
Saeed bin Suroor2-1-1+6.00+3.38
Charlie Johnston1-1-1+25.00+15.63
Michael Bell1-1-1+14.00+8.75
Mrs John Harrington1-1-1+7.50+4.69
John Gosden11-0-5-11.00+0.25

Balmoral Handicap Jockey Statistics

Here are some of the top Balmoral Handicap jockey statistics over the last 11 renewals (R = Runners, W = Winners, P = Places including winners, Win LSP is based on 1pt Win and EW LSP is based on 0.5pt Win & 0.5pt Place):

JockeyR-W-PWinEW
Daniel Tudhope9-1-3-5.00-2.99
James Doyle8-1-1+1.00-2.00
Jim Crowley8-1-1-3.50-4.81
Jason Watson6-1-1+75.00+45.00
Andrea Atzeni6-1-2+7.00+5.50
Adam Kirby5-1-2+12.00+10.63
Tom Marquand5-1-1+3.50+0.69
Louis Steward3-1-1+18.00+10.50
Joe Fanning2-1-1+24.00+14.63
Christophe Soumillon1-1-1+14.00+8.75

Balmoral Handicap Trend Analysis

The trend factor which had produced 6+ winners and shows the best LSP, an LSP of +80.00 is when runners had 2 career wins in the class. The worst performing factor that has failed to produce a single winner is when runners had 0 starts in the past 30 days, when backing these the trend shows a record of 0-67.

Here are the most recent winning draws along with the further placings in brackets:

  • 2024: Winner in 5 (22,18,21) [20 Runners]
  • 2023: Winner in 4 (5,2,7) [20 Runners]
  • 2022: Winner in 11 (20,2,13) [20 Runners]
  • 2021: Winner in 11 (15,12,7) [20 Runners]
  • 2020: Winner in 4 (7,2,10) [18 Runners]

The course which has produced the most winners of the Balmoral Handicap is Ascot, there has been a total number of 5 winners of this race who ran at Ascot last time out. The next best course which has produced the second most winners is Newmarket (Rowley), there has been a total number of 4 winners of this race who ran at Newmarket (Rowley) last time out.

The race is open to both sexes with the Male runners having produced a total of 11 winners from a total of 217 runners whilst the Female runners have produced 0 winners from a total of 7 runners.

Looking over the past renewals, there is only one stallion whose offspring have produced multiple winners of the Balmoral Handicap, that stallion Dark Angel has produced 2 winners (2022,2014).

These are the stallions whose offspring have not produced a winner of the Balmoral Handicap despite multiple attempts:

  • Dubawi (0 Wins from 9 runners)
  • Pivotal (0 Wins from 9 runners)
  • Kingman (0 Wins from 5 runners)
  • Lawman (0 Wins from 5 runners)

Looking at the winning odds over the last 11 renewals, the biggest-priced winner was Shelir in 2022, winning for David O'Meara at odds of 80/1 under the guidance of Jason Watson. Looking at the runners at the head of the market over the last 11 renewals there have been 1 winning favourites in the race. Ahead of the 2025 Balmoral Handicap why not head over to the best racing tipster page to see what the tipsters are backing today?

Schedule for British Champions Day at Ascot

Here is the schedule for the British Champions Day at Ascot, each race will be linked to the race blog and detail last year's winner in the table below.

RaceLast WinnerInfo
British Champions Long Distance CupKyprios (IRE)
6yo - 8/11
A P O'Brien
Ryan Moore
British Champions Sprint StakesKind Of Blue (GB)
3yo - 10/1
James Fanshawe
James Doyle
British Champions Fillies Mares StakesKalpana (GB)
3yo - 100/30
Andrew Balding
William Buick
Queen Elizabeth II StakesCharyn (IRE)
4yo - 13/8
Roger Varian
Silvestre De Sousa
British Champion StakesAnmaat (IRE)
6yo - 40/1
Owen Burrows
Jim Crowley
Balmoral HandicapCarrytheone (GB)
7yo - 14/1
Michael Bell
Christophe Soumillon

Article Contributor Information

We are blessed with an excellent team of specialists and experts at OLBG. Contributing to creating and maintaining this Balmoral Handicap Preview are at hand, Andy and James. They both work on the Horse racing tips team team looking after the tipsters and managing the tips settlement, whilst also creating and managing all of the horse racing event previews for Flat Racing.

James Banting

James Banting

Tipster competition assistant

James Banting, a passionate horse racing enthusiast and aficionado, brings a wealth of experience to OLBG, having attended numerous race meetings over the years. His background working with the Jockey Club provides him with a unique insider's perspective on the industry.
Andy Powell

Andy Powell

Content editor

Andy, a seasoned horse racing expert with over 15 years of experience, possesses a comprehensive understanding of the sport, from delving into complex statistical data for flat racing in the UK and Ireland to crafting insightful flat racing blogs for OLBG.

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