Ivor Godfrey Balding (23 May 1908 – 20 January 2005) was a British champion polo player, thoroughbred farm manager and racehorse trainer.
He moved to the United States in 1930 where he attended Cornell University.
In 1936, he went to work for the Thoroughbred breeding farm of Sonny Whitney in Old Westbury, New York.
Three years later Whitney appointed him manager of his key breeding operation in Lexington, Kentucky.
[2] During his tenure in Lexington, Balding encouraged Whitney to import Mahmoud from England where he had won the 1936 Epsom Derby.