CHAMPION JOCKEY TITLE NEXT HURDLE FOR RACHAEL
IT HAS been a year of firsts for Rachael Blackmore with the trailblazing Tipperary rider etching her name in racing history over the last month.
She became the first woman to win a championship race at Cheltenham when Honeysuckle won the Champion Hurdle before another five Festival winners saw her crowned Leading Rider.
As if all that wasn’t good enough, the 31-year-old (inset) became the first woman to claim the Aintree Grand National when partnering Minella Times to victory last Saturday in the world’s most famous jumps race.
Sportsperson of the Year awards are sure to come when Christmas floats around, but what’s next for the Killenaule native? What remarkable heights is she preparing to scale before the jumps season’s conclusion?
Leading English trainer Dan Skelton has likened her red-hot partnership with Henry de Bromhead to Michael Jordan’s unstoppable Chicago Bulls in the 1990s by insisting that the pair “just don’t miss” and Blackmore will want to strike while the iron is at its hottest.
One more piece of elusive history is within her grasp before the season ends at Punchestown on May 1 as she battles with Paul Townend to be crowned Irish champion jumps jockey, where she would again become the first woman to complete that feat.
Blackmore is 10 winners behind at present (she trails 95-85) but with the reigning champion currently sidelined due to a foot injury and no return date announced, the perfect year could yet get even sweeter.
Blackmore is easily the busiest jockey in the weighing room and will rarely give up the chance of a winner – no matter how remote that may be – with 516 mounts already under her belt this season.
Townend has ridden just 284 horses in comparison and is far more selective with the vast majority on behalf of his boss Willie Mullins, whereas Blackmore’s six mounts at Fairyhouse today highlight her incredible thirst for success. She partners three chances for De Bromhead at the Meath track while also getting the leg over on horses for Mouse Morris, Tom Mullins and Des Donovan as she bids to make hay in Townend’s absence.
Including today’s card, there are seven jumps meetings before the fiveday extravaganza at Punchestown closes proceedings for the season and she will leave no stone unturned in her attempt to overhaul Townend.
She famously got the better of Townend during her teens in a driving finish to a Cork pony race in 2004, but what she has achieved since turning professional is scarcely believable. “I never envisaged I’d make a career or make a living out of being a jockey,” she once said. “I had dreamt of riding in Cheltenham but not to ride a Cheltenham winner.”
She has made a living out of it, as well as inspiring a generation along the way. Racing needed a pickme-up and she has given the industry a turbo-charge with more history-making a distinct possibility.