Rachael Blackmore hails Cheltenham triumph: 'Anything can happen'
If Rachael Blackmore shattered one of jump racing’s few remaining glass ceilings with her win on Honeysuckle in Tuesday’s Champion Hurdle, it was an achievement – and a barrier – that she remains reluctant to acknowledge.
“It’s just there’s no deal about it any more,” she said after becoming the first female rider to win the Champion Hurdle, one of the four feature events at the Cheltenham Festival. “It’s not that I don’t talk about it, I just think if you want to be a jockey, you can be a jockey, drive on. To young people out there, male, female, whatever, if you want to
do something, go and do it because to me, standing here right now, literally anything can happen.”
Blackmore, 31, did not grow up around horses and rode her first winner in February 2011, then had to wait until March 2019 for her first Grade One success, on 50-1 shot Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle. Two years and a day later, she now has 13 to her name.
“To me, this was never even a dream,” she said. “It was so far from what I ever thought could happen in my life. To be in Cheltenham riding the winner of the Champion Hurdle, it’s just so far removed from something I ever thought could be possible, so maybe there’s a lesson in that for everyone out there.
“You can’t do it without getting on the right horses, I’ve been extremely lucky in that sense and getting linked up with [Honeysuckle’s trainer] Henry de Bromhead, you need to be riding those horses and that’s a massive part of any jockey’s career, being in the right place at the right time and getting linked up with the right yard.
“She is just so incredible. Henry produces her every day in that kind of form for me to just steer around. This is such a special race and I’m just so thankful to be a part of her, it’s all about her. She’s unbeaten, that’s just incredible and she’s getting better, she’s improving. Her last run was a career best until today.”
Tuesday’s card also saw a first for Denise “Sneezy” Foster, who took charge of Gordon Elliott’s stable after the trainer’s licence was suspended for six months for being pictured sitting on a dead horse on his gallops.
Foster’s runner Black Tears got up in the final strides to beat Concertista, the odds-on favourite, in the Mares’ Hurdle, delivering her first ever Grade One win as well as her first at the Festival.