Blackmore has racing history in her sights
▶ Champion Hurdle at mercy of Tipperary farmer’s daughter as Honeysuckle heads market after 10-race winning sequence
When Rachael Blackmore’s interest in the sport was just being sparked, jump racing was all about Istabraq. She went on a school trip to Ballydoyle where, forget the Flat horses, the star attraction was the popular three-time Champion Hurdle winner.
Fast-forward over two decades and today, on the unbeaten mare Honeysuckle, she has a favourite’s chance of adding her own name to the illustrious history of the world’s best hurdle race.
Forget glass ceilings and the fact that no one is less inclined to be flagbearer for her sex than Blackmore, if any of Cheltenham’s holy trinity of races (Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase or Gold Cup – she has rides in all three) this week fall to the Tipperary farmer’s daughter, it will be on a par with Michelle Payne winning the Melbourne Cup – and they made a film about that.
Honeysuckle has that most prized of form lines in racing, a row of 10 ones.
“She’s a fantastic mare for us to be involved with and I suppose when they are unbeaten it does attract attention,” says the rider, who is in a tussle with Paul Townend for the Irish jockeys’ title.
But Honeysuckle seemed to move it up to a different level last time out in the Irish Champion Hurdle, coming home 10 lengths clear of Abacadabras.
“She gave me an incredible feeling and felt a lot sharper than she’d ever felt before,” reflects Blackmore.
“Watching it back and, I am sure, plenty of people watching it live, thought I was making a move quite early, but it felt so right. She was taking me a lot more than she has done before – she was better, sharper and her jumping has improved. It felt like a career-best to me.”
If there had been a missing piece to Honeysuckle’s jigsaw, it was her jumping, but even that finally seemed to have clicked into place. “Her jumping was never bad, it just wasn’t two-mile Champion Hurdle style,” she adds. “There wasn’t too much attack at her hurdles, but she was doing that at Leopardstown. She was taking them on and was quick over them. I just think she is maturing the whole time.
“I can’t pinpoint anything. There was no magic morning when she went out and did a magic schooling session. It’s just been racing and natural improvement.
“There will be no let-up from the get-go in the Champion Hurdle. You don’t want to be missing or being slow at the third or fourth hurdle. In a Champion Hurdle, that can be race over. I have every confidence in her.”
Last year, Blackmore, 31, earned her Cheltenham spurs on Honeysuckle, slipping through on Townend’s inside round the last bend to win the mares’ hurdle.
“There was a lot of relief straight away that it had worked out,” she recalls. “The first thing when we pulled up, I could see Paul Townend’s face looking over at me and saying well done, but it was a face of agony. It was always going to be one of us in that situation.”
On Friday, Blackmore will be reunited with her first Festival winner, A Plus Tard, in the Gold Cup.
“He has been a very good horse for me. He is a Grade One winner over two miles and three miles and a very classy individual. The last day [in the Savills Chase] he was ridden to get the trip because it was a bit of an unknown for him. At the finish, it looked like all he was doing was staying on. He is stepping up in trip again at Cheltenham, but a horse like him is only improving.”
When Blackmore beat Townend
‘She gave me an incredible feeling and felt a lot sharper than she’d ever felt before’
‘I don’t like speaking about the female side of it, but I hope it inspires and helps girls’
in a pony race – her biggest claim to fame, she jokes – getting a ride in a point-to-point was the height of her ambition and she turned professional only because she was going nowhere as an amateur.
“I never envisaged riding in a Gold Cup. If I think of myself five or six years ago, it’s an unbelievable position to be in. Just getting a ride at Cheltenham was a massive deal and then you go and have 16 or 17 rides after things snowballed.”
It is a measure of how far Blackmore has come that it is she who is now getting the attention from children.
“The odd time I might get letters from kids in primary school and Honeysuckle would be the name mentioned,” she points out. “It must have been on the school curriculum at one stage to write to your sporting heroes because I was getting a few of them for a week or two.
“These were letters from sevenand eight-year-olds learning how to letter write in school – some of the handwriting is a lot nicer than mine!
“I don’t like speaking about the female side of it but I hope it inspires and helps girls if they want to continue in sport or go down this road. I know when I was starting off, Nina [Carberry] and Katie [Walsh] were a massive help for me. But the letters have been from both girls and boys.”