Ireland’s National Pride

Rachael Blackmore, the first woman to ride the winner of the Grand National, is odds on for the BBC’s World Sport Star title.

Eleven years ago, Sir Anthony McCoy became the first and, until now, the only person linked to horseracing to ever win the award. He racked up 20 consecutive champion jockey titles, but only one of those counted when it came to raising his profile beyond the horse racing public.

Tony McCoy’s win as BBC Sports Personality of the Year came at the end of 2010, the year in which he won the Grand National for the only time in his career on board Don’t Push It.

Now Rachael Blackmore is in contention to pick up a trophy at this year’s BBC Sports awards on the back of a magnificent season that also included a Grand National victory.

The 32-year-old from Killenaule, Ireland is favourite to receive the BBC World Sport Star of the Year accolade. This prestigious award has been held aloft by such sporting greats as Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Usain Bolt.

If few outside of racing were unaware of Blackmore’s rapid rise to the top of her profession, all that changed at Aintree in April when she made front-page news by becoming the first woman to ride the winner of the Grand National. She remarked in the winner’s enclosure after victory on Minella Times: ‘I don’t feel male or female right now. I don’t even feel human.’

The significance of Blackmore’s achievement of winning the Grand National needs putting into perspective. She is one of only 18 women ever to have had a ride in the race, with many of the previous female partnered horses having had little realistic chances of winning.

The historic victory came just over ten years after her first success when Stowaway Pearl won a handicap hurdle at Thurles for lady riders. Four years later, she became only the second Irish female jump jockey to join the paid ranks in 2015.

Once turning professional, Blackmore’s rise up the jockey ranks was rapid, becoming the first female jockey to be crowned Irish Conditional Champion in the 2016/17 season.

The biggest boost to Blackmore’s career followed her retainer with Minella Times’ trainer Henry de Bromhead, one of Ireland’s most progressive jumping stables. With a total of 90 winners in 2018/19, Blackmore found herself challenging for the Irish jockeys’ title and last season she set a new career-best seasonal total (92) in Ireland when runner-up to Paul Townend.

It was De Bromhead’s stable which provided Blackmore with her first two winners at the Cheltenham Festival in 2019. The standout was A Plus Tard who won the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase before going on to even bigger successes with Blackmore in the saddle, most recently in last month’s Gr1 Betfair Chase at Haydock.

Last season at the Cheltenham, Blackmore was the “darling” of the Festival with six wins, making her the first female jockey to be leading rider at the meeting. Five of those six wins came at Gr 1 level, including on Bob Olinger in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle and with Sir Gerhard, victorious in the Champion Bumper. However, the highlight was when making more history to win the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle. Blackmore’s unbeaten partnership with the great mare now extends to 13 races after the pair won the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse last month for the third time.

As her trainer Henry de Bromhead summarised: ‘I’m delighted for her. She’s such a good rider, an ultimate professional and deserves everything she gets.’ That could soon include a trophy with some very famous names on it.