Rachael Blackmore
It was quintessential Rachael Blackmore. A low-key day at the start of a low-key week, no television cameras, no marquee races, no countdown, no flying dismounts, not even a subtle wave. It was in keeping with her character that Rachael Blackmore would choose a nondescript Monday to tell the world that, as she put it, her days of being a jockey had come to an end.
A female jockey of course, but that was merely a descriptor, not a definer. And it was only for others to use. The first female jockey to …, the only female jockey to … Add whatever achievement you want. Be crowned champion conditional jockey in Ireland, or win the Gold Cup, or win the Champion Hurdle. Or win the Grand National, a notion that was so fanciful merely a generation ago that they made a movie about it that was immersed in make-believe.
None of that was for Rachael Blackmore. She always stood on her talent as a rider without any reference to gender and, because she did, she stood tall, up there with the giants of horse racing, up there with the giants of sport.
“I don’t feel male or female right now,” she famously said when it was put to her immediately after she had won that Grand National on Minella Times in 2021. “I don’t even feel human.”
Her talent was in evidence in the subtlety of her riding, her ability to make the correct split-second decision in the white-hot heat of a horse race, her tactical nous. There is a moment in that 2021 Grand National, at the first fence on the second circuit, when Lord Du Mesnil jumps a little to his left in front of Minella Times. If you are paying attention, and if you can read these things, you can probably tell that Lord Du Mesnil is tiring, so Rachael Blackmore moves Minella Times a little to his right, out of Lord Du Mesnil’s slipstream, smoothly and with an economy of effort. Over the next fence and Lord Du Mesnil starts to drop away, but by then Minella Times is past him without expending any energy and on his way to history.
Her range of talents was a thread that ran through the 2021 Cheltenham Festival. Six wins, top rider at the meeting, all achieved in different ways. From the front on Allaho, getting him into his racing and jumping rhythm and letting him roll, from the rear on Telmesomethinggirl and delivering her with perfect timing, and everything in between. Prominent on Bob Olinger and getting him settled, from the front on Sir Gerhard and Quilixios and kicking at the right time, from mid-division on Honeysuckle, kicking on at the second last.
First female to be leading rider at the Cheltenham Festival.
If there was one pebble in Rachael Blackmore’s shoe when she walked out of Cheltenham in March 2021 with six winners in her swag bag, it was that she had finished second in the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard, not first. Twelve months later, she resolved that she would put that right. The tactics that she had employed in 2021 hadn't worked, she figured, so she would have to do something different. The change was subtle, but it was also monstrous, and she and A Plus Tard bounded up Cheltenham's hill at the end of the 2022 Gold Cup, 15 lengths clear of their closest pursuers when they got to the winning line.
She was brilliant at Cheltenham again this year. She delivered Air Of Entitlement with a perfectly-timed run to get up and win the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle by a half a length, and she smuggled Bob Olinger around so that he powered up the hill at the end of three miles to win the Stayers’ Hurdle. That was her 18th win at the Cheltenham Festival, the joint eighth winning-most jockey there ever, level with Richard Dunwoody.
With that win on Bob Olinger, Rachael Blackmore joined an elite group of jockeys who have won the big five – Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, Stayers’ Hurdle, Grand National – and, of course, no other female jockey has done that.
This remarkable career was founded on graft and resilience and talent and a steely determination. Self-made. And toughness, mental and physical. At Cheltenham in 2021, she had a hard fall off Embittered in the Grand Annual, the second last race on the Wednesday, and she got up and won the last on Sir Gerhard. At Cheltenham in 2022, she was brought down when travelling well on Telmesomethinggirl in the Mares’ Hurdle. She literally bounced off the ground. A half an hour later, she was on her way down to the start for the Fred Winter Hurdle.
And it wasn’t meteoric. It was a slow burn. Four years flowed under the bridge between Rachael Blackmore’s first winner as an amateur and her first winner as a professional, the first professional female National Hunt jockey in Ireland in 25 years. She rode two winners in 2013/14 and two more in 2014/15, and she rode six winners in 2015/16. She combined her riding with her pursuit of a degree in equine science at University of Limerick, and that wasn’t easy.
Slowly, people started to recognise her talent. From Davy Russell to Shark Hanlon, from Eddie O’Leary to Henry de Bromhead. Of course, you can’t do it without the horses, you can’t get there without support from owners and trainers, but you don’t get the horses, you don’t get the support, you don’t get the opportunities, unless you have the talent.
Champion conditional in 2016/17, second in the jockeys’ championship in 2018/19 and again in 2020/21, when she rode 100 winners.
Hers is a rare blend of fantastic accomplishment and true humility. They would gather outside the weigh room at Kilbeggan to see her, children and adults, and she would stand for selfies and smile and answer questions. They would wait for her outside the parade ring at Tipperary, at the start of the jockeys’ walk back to the weigh room and, again, Rachael would stand, saddle in arms, and smile.
Her reach goes way beyond racing’s confines too. In 2021, she was voted RTE’s Sports Person of the Year, joining a roll of honour that includes Rory McIlroy and Katie Taylor and Sonia O’Sullivan and Roy Keane. She was voted BBC’s World Sports Star the same year, joining recent recipients of the award Roger Federer and Usain Bolt and Cristiano Ronaldo and Tiger Woods. Go back further, Seve Ballesteros and Martina Navratilova and Muhammad Ali and Gary Player and Arthur Ashe and Pelé and Nadia Comâneci and Eusébio.
You say Rachael, and everybody knows who you are talking about. She is a sporting icon.
Henry de Bromhead was correct during the week when he described Rachael Blackmore in three words: She is class.
© The Sunday Times, 14th May 2025
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