Rachael Blackmore becomes first female jockey to win Full analysis
In a fairy tale greater than National Velvet, Rachael Blackmore rewrites sporting history as the first female jockey to win the iconic steeplechase
Randox Grand National Festival, Aintree Racecourse, Merseyside
GLASS ceilings have become just about the most dangerous cliché to stand under in racing in the past 12 months due to the smashing tendencies of Hollie Doyle and Bryony Frost.
But on Saturday, on the back of a superb Cheltenham, Rachael Blackmore put the job of repair beyond any mortal glazier when she rode Minella Times to victory in the Randox Grand National, and into sporting history which goes way deeper than racing.
Female jockeys have been nibbling away at the National for some time – Rosemary Henderson fifth), Nina Carberry (seventh), Carrie Ford (fifth) and Katie Walsh (third) – and it was only a matter of time before one got on the right horse and enjoyed a bit of luck.
Quite apart from the jockey herself and Henry de Bromhead, who also had the 100-1 runner-up Balko Des Flos, this was a massive result for racing, one of the few sports in which amateur and professional, male and female, can compete on an equal playing field at the highest level.
Hitherto the only female to triumph in the great race was Velvet Brown, the dreamy subject of Enid Bagnold’s popular 1935 novel National Velvet. But Blackmore turned fiction into fact for the first time in the race’s 182year history with a superb ride on Henry de Bromhead’s eight-yearold by Oscar, on whom she had
never finished out of the first two on four starts before Saturday.
Six winners including a Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham was grand but this was grander, the world’s greatest steeplechase, and such is the confidence and tactical precision with which Blackmore is riding I am wondering if there is such a thing as luck. She certainly seems to be making her own at the moment, and if the world had not heard of her exploits after Cheltenham, well, it has after Aintree.
Never out of the first 10 and near to the inside, Minella Times jumped superbly and appeared, like winners so often do when you look back at the race, to be in his own protected little bubble – all the action was going on around him but never in front or underneath him.
“I don’t even feel human” RACHAEL BLACKMORE, IMMEDIATELY AFTER HER WIN
That was in stark, stark contrast to the arguably unlucky third Any Second Now, who had to step over the fallen Double Shuffle who was broad-side on in his path on the ground at the 12th. Swap their luck around and he is probably the winner.
At the second last, where Blackmore took it up, there were four in with serious chances: the winner, his staying on stable companion Balko Des Flos, Any Second Now and Burrows Saint, ridden by the winning jockey’s housemate Patrick Mullins.
But Minella Times was always
travelling a bit better, and despite his stablemate trying to hang on to his shirt-tails from the last, he galloped on past the Elbow to win by six-and-a-half lengths.
Blackmore gets it but has never pushed the gender thing. “I don’t feel male or female right now,” she said on pulling up. “I don’t even feel human.
“I hope it helps anyone who wants to be a jockey. I never dreamed about making a career as a jockey because I thought it could never happen. And it did. So just keep your dreams big, I suppose. That’s all the inspiration I have for you.”
After collecting her trophy she said: “I never imagined I’d get a ride in this race let alone be standing here looking at the back of this trophy. This race captures the imagination of every young person with a pony and to actually fulfil something like this is just unbelievable.”
Describing Minella Times as a “sensational spin” she said: “I’ve asked Ruby and Katie Walsh about riding around here and they often talk about a semicircle [of space] in front of you and I had that everywhere. That’s what you need in a race like this – you need so much luck to get around with no one interfering, first of all. You need everything to go right and things went right for me today. I feel so incredibly lucky.”
A GRAND SLAM
NO offence to any of the 37 male jockeys riding in this year’s National but had any one of them ridden Minella Times, it would have been all about the trainer, Henry de Bromhead.
Most trainers spend a lifetime trying to win Cheltenham’s Holy Trinity (Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup) and the National, jump racing’s Grand Slam – Nicky Henderson still hasn’t – but de Bromhead has done it inside a month with a one-two in both the Gold Cup and National.
“I used to dream about winning this – of course – but it was a distant dream!” he said. “These are the races you want to win.
“We were a bit unfortunate with Minella Times through the winter, having a couple of great runs and just getting beaten. We schooled the horses over some Aintree-type fences – fairly makeshift things – which seemed to have helped, but Minella Times is such a good jumper anyway.”
On Sunday de Bromhead said: “I’ve a big smile on my face this morning, for sure. It’s incredible – unreal. Hopefully it will sink in eventually. It’s a shame we can’t celebrate it properly, but isn’t it great it was all able to go ahead?”
He added: “I suppose we’ve never had a horse as short as 11-1 in the betting for the National, which is always a good sign. We had a bit of luck. There was one fence where if the faller had gone left instead of right it would have stopped us in our tracks. We’re sending good horses in peak form over at the moment and everything is falling right for us.”
A number of horses prominent in the betting like Kimberlite Candy, Takingrisks and Potters Corner never got into the race. Lake View Lad made his disdain for the course clear when he wiped out at the first, while Vieux Lion Rouge, on whom I would have put my grandmother in expectation of a clear round, made a surprise exit at the 20th.
The disappointment of the race was Cloth Cap, the favourite who had been 14lbs well in but, as is often the case, it proved too good to be true, though he ran well for a long way before being pulled up three out.
Sadly, The Long Mile was pulled up injured on the second circuit and had to be put down.
“It’s incredible – unreal”
HENRY DE BROMHEAD