The Racehorse Who Learned to Dance

CLARE BALDING is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who has been at the forefront of sports presentation since 1998. She has been a key anchor at seven Olympic and six Paralympic Games as well as multiple Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics. She was awarded a special BAFTA in 2012 for her work at the London Olympics and Paralympics. In 2023, she took over as the lead BBC TV presenter at Wimbledon. She was a key commentator on the BBC's television coverage of King Charles III's Coronation in 2023 and for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee coverage in 2022. She has presented the television coverage of Crufts for nearly two decades and Lost Dogs Live on Channel 5, which helps reunite missing dogs with their owners. During most of her childhood she thought she was a dog and has tried to live with the mentality of a Labrador puppy: be pleased to see everyone and treat every new task as an exciting adventure. Her first book, My Animals and Other Family, was published in 2012 and won the National Book Award for biography of the year. In 2013, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and in 2023 received a CBE for services to sport and charity in the Queen's final Honours List.

Tony Ross was born in Wandsworth, but moved during the war to Cheshire. He ended up at the Liverpool Regional College of Art after despairing of working with his first love - horses. He went into teaching after a bad day in an advertising agency, where he was art director, and at first taught in all sorts of areas - design, advertising, typography. At that time he was drawing cartoons in magazines like Punch. He has written and illustrated many popular books for children including Foxy Fables, I'm Coming to Get You and Naughty Nigel, all published in Puffin. He lives in Cheshire with his wife and daughter.