Rachael Blackmore: ‘When I won the Grand National, it was nothing to do with being male or female'

Irish Times

03-05-2025

It's a drizzly, grey day in Leighlinbridge, Co
Carlow
, where I'm meeting history-making jockey
Rachael Blackmore
. We're in Rachel's Cafe, the bustling restaurant of a sprawling garden centre. 'They've spelt your name wrong,' I say in mock indignation, pointing at the sign, and she laughs and says, 'well spotted'. Blackmore is one of those Rachaels with an a. When our meeting was initially arranged, I momentarily wondered whether this was actually her cafe, a little side hustle the way Irish rugby players like to get involved with pubs. Then again, Blackmore has enough going on without adding cafe proprietor to the mix.
She's in her racing gear, breeches and a gilet, having just come from riding out in trainer
Henry De Bromhead
's yard, 45 minutes away in
Waterford
. She gets up at 7am every day, fuelled by a breakfast of porridge and Nutella – 'I'm trying to make it a less sugary breakfast' – and rides out six mornings a week on horses owned by De Bromhead and Carlow-based trainer
Willie Mullins
. But we are not here to talk about her life in racing. Known variously as the Queen of
Cheltenham
and the first woman to win the
Aintree Grand National
on Minella Times in 2021, I'm interviewing Blackmore in her new capacity as author – she's just published her first children's book called, brilliantly,
Granny National
.
This pivot is not as radical as it might once have been. We live in an age where trailblazing jockey
Nina Carberry
, an author of three children's books, is a former
Dancing With the Stars
winner and now an MEP. After Blackmore won the Grand National, she says several publishers got in touch trying to secure a deal for her story in book form. She turned them all down. She has 'no interest' in writing a memoir while her racing career is in full flow but might do it 'one day', acknowledging that there is 'an incredible story' to tell. In the meantime, she wondered whether publishers were interested in a children's book instead.
Granny National is the result. Taking inspiration from Blackmore's own childhood growing up on a dairy farm in Killenaule,
Co Tipperary
, she has written an adventure story set on a dairy farm starring a horse-mad girl called Rachael (with an a, naturally), her best friend Frankie, and her two cousins: risk-taking country lad Tom, and the more sedate city boy David, who is visiting from New York. The four schemers hatch a plan to help Rachael and Tom's grandmother fulfil her lifelong dream of being a jockey, which the book blurb describes as 'a very big idea that may get them all into very big trouble!'
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Writing it turned out to be more trouble than Blackmore ever imagined. 'Thank you for reading this book,' she writes in the acknowledgments. 'I hope you enjoy reading it more than I did trying to write it!'
The first meeting with the book's publisher Penguin was in 2022 and the manuscript was supposed to be delivered the following year. The way Blackmore tells it, the resulting three-year writing process was more tortuous than a Grand National made up entirely of Becher's Brooks.
She is refreshingly honest about this: 'I may, stupidly, have underestimated it,' she says of the process, which involved her working closely with Rachel Pierce, an acclaimed editor of books such as
Paul Howard's
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
series. 'I don't like reading, so I don't know why I thought I was going to write a children's book. Maybe I thought it was going to be a picture book and then it escalated.'
After her Grand National win she got a lot of letters from children. 'So I thought it would be a nice thing to do. A book is special. I thought I'd enjoy putting some of my own experiences as a child into a story. And I definitely did enjoy parts of it,' she says.
Rachael Blackmore: 'It's been years and years of women being incredible, more recently Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh. They definitely finished off any bit of stigma that may have been lingering.' Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho
But it was a challenge. Blackmore is dyslexic and since childhood has preferred audio books to print – Enid Blyton novels and the Harry Potter series were favourites. In preparation for writing her own book she invested in bestselling author
David Walliams's
online guide to writing a children's book. 'I listened to that and then I printed out all the notes.' She was encouraged, at first. 'It was all very interesting. I was like, I got this, and then I tried to do some of the things he was saying and I was like, oh my God, this is so hard.'
The book is clearly a collaboration. 'Rachael Blackmore with Rachel Pierce' is printed on the cover. Other people would not be so generous in promoting their ghost writer.
'She was able to help me put those words on the page... I was only able to do it with her help and her guidance. It was important to be honest.'
Granny National by Rachael Blackmore with illustrations by Tom Snape
She is delighted with Tom Snape's illustrations which, for this book, have a definite – and you'd imagine deliberate – whiff of
Roald Dahl
illustrator Quentin Blake's style. 'I love Tom Snape's illustrations. If kids don't like the book, they still have to like the front cover. It's a good cover.'
Everyone knows not to judge a book by that metric, but it turns out Granny National is a rollicking read which Blackmore hopes will engage horsey types as well as children who don't know one end of a pony from the other. 'I wanted it to appeal to everyone, not just the pony kids,' she says. The character of New Yorker David, is a useful device in this regard. 'Everything about horses and life on the farm needs to be explained to him,' she says.
In imagining the world of the book, she went back to the farm she grew up on with her mother Eimir, a retired English teacher, her farmer father Charles and siblings, a sister Charlotte and brother Jonny. Real-life Rachael's grandparents lived in a house on the farm, and that's also the case in the book. The grandfather in the book inspires fear in the children, but 'I wanted him to be like Severus Snape in Harry Potter, fearsome on the outside, good on the inside'.
As in the book, real-life Rachael had a horse called Bubbles as a child, a formative influence. 'She was a very forward-going pony and I had limited control of her when I was young, so I got a taste for going fast.' Another pony who features is Polo mint-loving G-Pip, named after the childhood pony of her partner, jockey Brian Hayes.
Blackmore didn't grow up beside a racecourse but for the purpose of the madcap plot, there is one located beside Rachael's farm in the book. There is also a poignant, subtly drawn storyline about
dementia
which she has experienced in her own family. The granny is inspired by two 'very kind and fun' grandmothers. One of them, Maura, is still alive and living on the farm. 'She loves reading so hopefully she'll enjoy the book … I just wanted to write something about how it's never too late. How even if you are a granny, you can still do cool stuff.' Originally, Rachael was going to ride in a race with the granny character, 'but then we took that out. I like that granny is the cool one at the end.'
I was not happy that I was the first woman that had won the race, that didn't come to me at all
—
Rachael Blackmore
The chapter she worked the hardest on, she says, was the one about the Grand National where all the characters sit down to watch the race on the television having done a sweepstake. For fun, Blackmore had past Irish-bred winning horses from different eras competing in the race – from Minella Times to Noble Yeats, Red Rum to Tiger Roll, Amberleigh House to One For Arthur.
'Watching the National in my friend's house as a child, with the horses names cut out from the paper, was my introduction to horse racing as a kid. I remember just being captivated by it … and you ride your pony the next day, and you're going around the field, and imagining being in that race. It's actually hard for me now to comprehend that I rode in the race, I've actually won that race. And that now there's a book out with my name on it.'
Racing is not the main reason for our meeting, but it would be impossible to interview Rachael Blackmore and not discuss her groundbreaking achievements. She spent her childhood riding ponies, her parents bringing her to events all over the country. She became a talented amateur and after earning a diploma in Equine Science from Limerick University, turned professional in 2015.
In the 10 years since, she has been first past the post at the most prestigious racecourses and races in England and Ireland. Awarded
an honorary MBE two years ago
, she was both the first woman to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the first to win a Grand National in the 82-year history of the event. A past winner of this newspaper's Sportswoman of the Year, she hasn't always been comfortable with the 'first woman' label. When asked about it directly after the Grand National win in 2021 she said: 'I don't feel male or female right now, I don't even feel human, it's just unbelievable.'
Afterwards, she received a letter from a woman who advised: 'You need to take hold of this.' How did that make her feel? 'I understood what she was saying, but from my point of view, I'm not making a big deal of it because I don't want it to be a big deal. Do you get me?'
Blackmore didn't grow up beside a racecourse but for the purpose of the Granny National's madcap plot, there is one located beside Rachael's farm in the book. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho
I do. She wants to be treated the same as any other jockey. She doesn't want her gender to be the main talking point. It feels unfair that this might be interpreted as somehow failing the sisterhood. Sipping hot chocolate and picking at a cupcake she says now: 'I don't want trainers and owners to make a big deal out of it. I want them to treat me like a normal rider, which they do, and use me if they think I'm good enough.
'I fully understand that it is a massive deal, but right now in my life, I just want to ride, to try and ride winners and try my best on the biggest days and continue with my job.'
She is aware of the significance of her achievements, however. 'It's taken a long time for this to happen,' she says. Under Jockey Club rules, women were banned from horse racing in the UK and Ireland until 1972. It wasn't until five years later that Charlotte Brew became the first woman to ride in the National. Blackmore mentions a comment made by the late British horse trainer Ginger McCain, who led Red Rum to three Grand National wins. 'He said something about racing not being a sport for women.' Later, I look up the exact quote: 'Horses don't win Nationals ridden by women, that's a fact,' McCain said in 2005, referring to jockey Carrie Ford who he dismissed as 'a broodmare'. Ford rode in that year's National 10 weeks after giving birth to her first child. 'If Carrie Ford wins the National I'll bare my backside to the wind, and let everyone kick it,' McCain added at the time. Ford came fifth that year.
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Women jockeys on the racing industry: 'Of course, we've progressed. But where are the rest of the girls?'
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'McCain was Mr Grand National back then … now he's got granddaughters who are riding out,' Blackmore says, offering a neat illustration of how times have changed in racing. Has she ever experienced sexism in the male-dominated industry? 'No, none whatsoever.' There are times, she explains, when trainers might want a rider with a more 'aggressive' style. 'My racing style wouldn't be massively aggressive … it's probably perceived as more of a male trait, but that's a bit unfair because there's probably male jockeys who are great at their jobs without being aggressive.'
Horse racing remains one of the few sports where men and women compete side by side, but 'just because a girl wins the Grand National there's not going to suddenly be 20 girls right next to you … those kids are coming up through the ranks, and it takes time.' How does she feel about being a role model to young female jockeys? 'It's a privilege … I can't believe I'm that person. I hope I don't do anything to mess it up.'
She goes on to explain how the Grand National is a very different beast from races at Cheltenham, 'where you have a lot of pressure and relief if you win … when you're in the Grand National, you don't get any relief, because you don't have any pressure. It's such a big race and it's so mad. Anything can happen. You can be riding the favourite and it can all go horribly wrong.
'So when I won, it was just boom. Joy. Elation. Straight away. And I was so happy that I had won the race, myself, personally … I was not happy that I was the first woman that had won the race, that didn't come to me at all.'
The fact that this was not her first and most dominant thought, she says, is down to 'all the incredible women that have gone before me and done tireless work to put me in the position where, when I won the Grand National, it was nothing to do with being male or female. And I don't know how to thank them for that.
'It's been years and years of women being incredible, more recently Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh. They definitely finished off any bit of stigma that may have been lingering. I came along a few years after them, and walked into a weigh room and into an industry where, you know, if she's good enough, she'll be given opportunities like anyone else.'
Rachael Blackmore: 'I want trainers to treat me like a normal rider, which they do, and use me if they think I'm good enough.' Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho
I ask her about the risks involved in her profession. In the past, Blackmore has joked that she has spent way too much time in the back of an ambulance. Last month at Aintree, one of the horses she was riding, Willy de Houelle, died after a fall in which
Blackmore was injured
. On a recent Late Late Show appearance, she paid tribute to the young jockey
Michael O'Sullivan who died in Thurles last February
. When I ask a friend of mine from Tipperary what he thinks of her, he texts one word: 'Brave'.
'The danger is just something you can't dwell on,' she says. 'It would be very unenjoyable to be heading out to ride if you were thinking about what could go wrong or what could happen … it'd be horrible, so it's something you just have to accept. It's probably hard for people on the outside to understand that, but you get so much enjoyment from what you're doing … if you get a taste of success riding a horse in a race, it's just an incredible feeling, and that feeling just masks out anything else and there's a day, maybe, when it'll stop masking out everything else. And if that day comes, then it's your time to finish off.' For Blackmore, that day is way off in the distance. At 35, she expects to have many more years in the saddle.
What about critics who say it's a cruel sport in terms of animal welfare – does that bother her at all? 'Everyone is entitled to an opinion, obviously. But, I'm in the middle of this industry and I know how well taken care of the horses are, and I love horses.'
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Death of a jockey: 'Michael O'Sullivan was full of ambition, full of passion ... he was just a beautiful person'
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Later she says: 'You can't do anything without the horses, that's why I always thank them.' She also returns, again and again, to the trust trainers have placed in her, and to how fortunate she has been in her career. 'Yes, you have to work hard to be in a position to get these opportunities, but there are so many good jockeys in the weigh room who are able to ride just the exact same as me, if not better. But they don't get to ride Honeysuckle in a race and be with her for her whole career. They don't get to be legged up on horses like A Plus Tard or Minella Times in a Grand National. I've been so lucky … because it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't get the horses to ride.'
Then she makes a slick conversational canter back to the main reason for our meeting. 'It doesn't matter if you write the best book ever, if you don't get a publisher.'
Does she feel the book will be inspirational for other people struggling with dyslexia? In answering, she is eager not to downplay the challenge. 'Well, like I said earlier it was really hard … I thought it would be a very enjoyable, nice, fun thing to do. I love the book now that it's done, but it was hard.' Before she heads off to the gym where she works out three times a week with a personal trainer, I ask what teenage Rachael Blackmore would think of the idea that she had written a children's book.
'Teenage me never imagined any of my life right now,' she says smiling. 'I might have had dreams of riding at Cheltenham or in the Grand National, but not about winning it. It was never even a dream in my brain because it was too far fetched … I never thought any of this would be my life.'
Granny National by Rachael Blackmore is published by Penguin