HISTORY maker Rachael Blackmore has retired from riding having won it all and transformed the sport.
Jump racing’s queen won every big race imaginable, including her groundbreaking Grand National win on Minella Times in 2021.
Rachael Blackmore has retired from riding having won it all and transformed the sport
Blackmore paved the way for a new generation of jockeys
She became the first woman to win Aintree’s famous race and smashed the glass ceiling several times over during her brilliant 16-year career.
There have been women riding over jumps for nearly 50 years, with Val Greaves the first ever to ride a National Hunt winner in 1978.
But the vast majority found it impossible to break through to a high level in the incredibly macho, male-dominated world of jumps racing.
Wonder woman Blackmore, 35, not only proved she was good enough – and tough enough – to compete against men, but her rare talent took her to the very pinnacle of the sport.
And she opened the door for a new generation of female jumps jockeys, who might otherwise have found it too daunting to try and make a career in one of the world’s most dangerous sports.
When she rode her first winner on Stoaway Pearl at a lowly midweek meeting at Thurles in February 2011, it lit the touch paper on a legendary career in the saddle.
Very few trainers wanted to use her at the beginning and she rode just 12 winners between 2010 and 2016.
But Shark Hanlon spotted some potential and he helped her get her foot on the ladder before she eventually caught the eye of top trainer Henry De Bromhead in 2018.
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It was a game changer for Blackmore, and she quickly discovered the brilliant mare Honeysuckle, who she rode to back-to-back Champion Hurdle wins at the Cheltenham Festival.
She also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on A Plus Tard and, in winning the Champion Chase and Stayers’ Hurdle, she joined an elite group of jockeys to sweep the Festival’s “big four” races, a feat even 20-time champion jockey AP McCoy couldn’t manage.
Blackmore has been in a long-term relationship with fellow jockey Brian Hayes
GettyBlackmore rode 18 winners at the Cheltenham Festival, including Captain Guinness in the Queen Mother Champion Chase[/caption]
Blackmore said: “A conversation between [owner] Eddie O’Leary and Henry de Bromhead in a taxi on the way to Aintree took my career to a whole new level.
“Eddie got me in the door at the stable, and what came next was unimaginable. Honeysuckle, A Plus Tard, Minella Times, among many others.
“All with one thing in common – Henry de Bromhead. He’s a phenomenal trainer, who brought out the best in me. Without Henry, my story is very different.”
But it was her historic win in the Grand National in 2021 aboard Minella Times that propelled her into the pantheon of sporting greats.
Until that point, the closest a woman had come to winning the big one was in the movie National Velvet, when Elizabeth Taylor disguised herself as a man and stormed home in front.
The only regret around that magical day is there was nobody at Aintree to cheer her home, with the meeting held behind closed doors during Covid.
Life-changing win
It was a life-changing win and she soon found herself being stopped for autographs and selfies in the street.
She once received fan mail from a young girl in the UK who simply addressed the letter to: “Rachael Blackmore, Ireland.”
Her success wasn’t just limited to the track, as she was crowned BBC World Sports of the Year and was named RTE’s Sports Person of the Year in 2021.
She suffered a serious neck injury after a fall at Downpatrick in September last year, and when she returned in December she struggled for form.
She still ended up having a stellar season, riding 35 winners and banking over £1.2million in prize money, and her last winner came on Ma Belle Etoile at Cork on Saturday.
Blackmore said: “There are so many people to thank, too many to mention. I feel so incredibly lucky to have had the career I’ve had.
“To have been in the right place at the right time with the right people, and to have gotten on the right horses because it doesn’t matter how good you are without them.
“They have given me the best days of my life and to them I am most grateful.”
Whatever the future holds for Blackmore, she will go down as one of the modern greats and, even more importantly, she has changed the sport for the better.
LOWDOWN ON HER INCREDIBLE CAREER
HISTORY-MAKER Rachael Blackmore MBE notched up 18 Cheltenham Festival winners and a Grand National triumph.
But her 10 years of trailblazing victory after victory has been so much more than that.
She was the first woman to triumph in the National – in 2021 on Henry de Bromhead-trained Minella Times.
That same year she also became the first female to end up as the Cheltenham Festival’s leading jockey, with six wins including the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle.
It helped Blackmore become both the 2021 RTÉ Sports Person of the Year and BBC World Sport Star of the Year.
The following year she made history again as the first woman to triumph in the
Cheltenham Gold Cup – on favourite A Plus Tard – as well as guiding Honeysuckle to another Champion Hurdle success.
Here’s a guide to some of her achievements:
March 2015 – turned professional.
September 2015 – first win, on Most Honourable, trained by John Joseph Hanlon.
2018 – Grand National debut on 33/1 shot Alpha des Obeaux, which fell at the 15th fence.
April 2019 – first Grade 1 victory, on Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.
2021 – first woman to win the Champion Hurdle, on Honeysuckle.
First female to finish the Cheltenham Festival as leading jockey.
Also first female winner of the Grand National, riding Minella Times to glory.
2022 – second successive Champion Hurdle win on Honeysuckle.
First woman to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, on favourite A Plus Tard.
2025 – Completes clean sweep of the Festival’s Big Four – by triumphing in the Stayers’ Hurdle on Bob Olinger.
That follows her Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup victories.
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