Balding Mourns Loss of Gewan After Fatal Training Gallop Accident

Gewan, last season's European champion two-year-old and one of the leading contenders for next month's Betfred 2000 Guineas, was fatally injured in a racecourse gallop at Kempton on Thursday morning. The sport lost one of its brightest Classic prospects before he ever got the chance to prove himself at the highest level.

Andrew Balding issued a statement confirming the tragedy: "It is with extreme sadness that we report that Gewan, champion two-year-old of 2025, suffered a fatal accident whilst having a racecourse gallop at Kempton this morning. The vets were on site and attended to the horse immediately but sadly he could not be saved."

The trainer extended his condolences to owner Harris Li and his family, to jockey James Doyle, who was riding Gewan at the time but escaped uninjured, and to Marie Perrault, the groom who had looked after the horse.

The Night Of Thunder colt won three of his four juvenile starts for Balding, impressing on his Newbury debut before taking York's Acomb Stakes and, despite disappointing as hot favourite for the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, bouncing back to land the Dewhurst at Newmarket in October. That Dewhurst victory, achieved at 25-1, saw Gewan put established superpowers Coolmore and Godolphin in the shade under James Doyle, giving Balding a second win in four years in the Dubai Future Champions Festival highlight.

Gewan had been as short as 6-1 for the Betfred 2000 Guineas over the Rowley Mile at Newmarket. The plan had been to send him to the Watership Down Stud Too Darn Hot Greenham Stakes at Newbury as his seasonal reappearance, the same pre-Guineas route Balding used with his 2023 Classic winner Chaldean, who famously unseated Frankie Dettori leaving the stalls before redeeming himself on the first Saturday in May.

Gewan had been officially transferred at the start of the year from Zhang Yuesheng's Yulong Investments to Forz Europe Ltd, the racing arm of Harris Li's Ace Stud operation. Ace Stud's Paul Curran had spoken enthusiastically about Gewan's prospects just weeks ago, describing him as "our biggest hope" and noting that Balding was "very happy with the horse and how he is building back up towards race-fitness."

The loss reshapes the 2000 Guineas picture considerably. With Gewan gone, the Rowley Mile field loses its most compelling native Classic hope, a horse whose Dewhurst form placed him squarely in the conversation with Aidan O'Brien's string from Ballydoyle. For Balding's Kingsclere yard, it is a devastating blow early in the campaign, stripping the stable of the headline act around which much of its Classic season had been built. Gewan was three years old and had not yet run in 2026. He will not get the chance.