BBC New Comedian of the Year Semi Finalist 2021 & Midlands Comedy Award Winner for Best New Act, Ricky Balshaw is a Paralympic, World Championship and European Championship dressage medallist with a penchant for dark humour. His debut show is appearing at Leicester Comedy Festival, Brighton Fringe and the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022.

Born with cerebral palsy, he started riding as part of his physiotherapy at the age of 4. At the age of 14 he was invited to join the British Paralympic dressage team and is still the youngest person to be inducted to the senior team.

He was named as first reserve for the Athens Paralympic Games in 2004 and was subsequently on the team for the Beijing Paralympic Games at which he secured an individual silver medal in the freestyle dressage on his horse, Deacons Georgi. He then won medals at the World and European Championships before retiring from dressage at the start of 2016.

He went on to compete in Para Reining and in 2019 became the Para Reining World Champion. He retired from competitive sport shortly after. Since retiring, Ricky has taken on a coaching role within the equestrian world helping both non-disabled and disabled riders to improve.

Ricky is an experienced motivational/after dinner speaker, discussing his sporting career and the journey after retiring. He has also worked as a sports pundit for Channel 4 for the Paralympic Games in London, Rio and Tokyo.