JUMP GIRLS
Brilliant new documentary shines a light on the no-frills life for talented women in racing, led by jockey Rachael Blackmore
RACHAEL Blackmore is leaving the weigh room at Aintree, lugging a hefty gear bag over her shoulder and pulling a trolley. She is sore in every sense, having shipped a heavy fall from Alpha Des Obeaux in the Grand National.
She weaves through shiny-suited punters in their shades, drinking pints of beer before being stopped and asked to sign a race programme, which she does with her free hand.
Blackmore may be the most accomplished female National Hunt jockey in these islands, but her chosen sport is no cushy ride.
If she was a professional footballer, rugby player or golfer, she’d have members of ‘Team Blackmore’ at her beck and call.
But racing doesn’t do frills; neither does Blackmore. She gets knocked down and gets up again.
In a sport which demands toughness, she’s as hard as nails, and an exceptional rider, currently a close second to Paul Townend in the Irish jockeys’ table.
For her very first winner, she chinned Townend in a Tipperary Pony Club race in September 2004. If she beats him to the post for the Irish jump jockeys’ title, it will be something else.
In the Jump Girls documentary, to be shown on TG4 this week, the Blackmore story bubbles to the front of the field through 100 compelling minutes.
For all the candour of Katie Walsh – ‘I don’t like bullshit’ – and Nina Carberry and Lisa O’Neill, it is the professional women who get under the skin of this outstanding production. Blackmore, Katie O’Farrell, Lizzie Kelly and Jessica Harrington are the stars, for they trade blows on a level footing with the men, and don’t yield an inch.
They are fiercely competitive, driven and straight as a die.
As Ted Walsh observes: ‘Women are stronger than men mentally; men a**e-lick, women don’t. The real strong women say, “Go f*** yourself”.’
Blackmore was never servile to anyone, and was not born into racing either, unlike Walsh and Carberry.
Anne Widger, a work rider who has known Blackmore from the Pony Club circuit, points out that ‘she was never gifted at anything’. ‘It was sheer grit that got here where she is today.’
To put Jump Girls in context, it is barely 50 years since women were allowed to hold a licence to ride.
The notion then that three women might one day ride in the Grand National at Aintree, as Walsh, Blackmore and Bryony Frost did last April, would have been laughable.
As for Kelly finishing seventh in the Gold Cup? The blinkered ‘toffs and tweeds’ set, who used to run racing, would have snorted into their brandies at such a thought.
The sport has galloped on now, recognising women as equals, on and off the course, as Jump Girls conveys in a series of revealing interviews, access-all-areas footage, and excellent camerawork.
The slow-motion shots of falls by Kelly, O’Neill and Blackmore are gripping.
The programme follows the National Hunt season from December 2017 and runs through to the Galway Festival last July. The journey includes Cheltenham and Aintree and follows the good days and bad, sunshine and snow.
There is pathos in Our Duke’s demise with Kate Harrington and Tracy Piggott tearfully recalling their goodbyes to a horse they each loved. There is the stoicism of Harrington to keep the upper lip stiff, no matter what. ‘You can’t say poor me. You say, “I can and I will”.’
But there is a frailty evident in this iron woman, especially before the 2018 Gold Cup. ‘You’re sick, nervous, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. My imagination is brilliant at that.’
There is the conviction of O’Farrell, who rode through pain for nine days with a busted leg after a freak accident in racing at Galway. It led to a four-month absence, which followed six months out in 2018.
‘It was tough to get people trusting you for what you had before injury. For a while, I wasn’t sure I had it myself, that was the hardest part,’ she says.
There are tears from Katie Walsh for her stricken brother Ruby at Cheltenham, two hours before she wins the Bumper. ‘It was a heartbreaking day for him (Ruby) and a heart-filling day for me.’
And there are smiles and glam as Walsh and Carberry, great friends and rivals, recall retiring on a winner apiece at Punchestown.
The flame they carried has been passed on and Blackmore is the primary bearer. She is so modest that when fellow jockey, Aine O’Connor, talks about her ‘dedication’, the scene had to be re-shot without Blackmore present.
How good is she? Gigginstown’s Michael O’Leary saluted Blackmore’s ‘racing brain’ and predicted she could be champion jockey.
Patrick Mullins, a close friend and housemate in Carlow, hails her fearlessness. ‘Rachael’s had a lot of hard falls but it has never affected her when she rides into a fence or a hurdle.’
What’s next for Blackmore and Co? ‘You’ve got to keep kicking,’ says Frost.
With Cheltenham around the corner, Blackmore is kicking harder than anyone.
Jump Girls will be shown in two episodes on TG4, on Thursday, February 21 (9.30pm) and Thursday, February 28 (9.30pm)