Latest news with #HenrydeBromhead
Irish Examiner
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Double delight for in-form O'Keeffe
Darragh O'Keeffe's recent move up the ladder at Henry de Bromhead's stable has already begun to reap its reward, but on Thursday night at Limerick it was a 27-1 double provided by Enda Bolger and Edward O'Grady which brought his tally for the new season to an impressive 13 winners. In the Treaty Plant Hire Handicap Chase, he got Bolger's Tippin And Tappin up in the shadow of the post, but it was less dramatic aboard O'Grady's Priory Park, which led turning for home and found plenty to beat stablemate Ceroc in the Gairdin Glas Handicap Chase. Of the latter, O'Keeffe reported: 'I thought he'd run a big race. He was a bit unlucky the last day, in Killarney, over shorter. The second-last fence was omitted then and they got away from me, and all I seemed to do was stay on. Up in trip today, and there was an honest gallop, and he jumped well, on the whole. It worked out grand.' Useful hurdler Intellotto made a seamless transition to chasing in the Summer Racing At Limerick Racecourse Beginners' Chase. The mount of JJ Slevin, and trained by Joseph O'Brien, he set off in front alongside market rival Jigoro and they remained almost inseparable until he began to turn the screw as they approached the turn for home. Quite quickly, matters were in hand, and the odds-on favourite raced away to win as he pleased. 'He's a clever horse, with plenty of scope and plenty of size, and it was a nice first run over fences,' said Slevin. 'He was entered in Killarney the other day, but Joseph decided to wait and do a bit more schooling with him. He was a high-class hurdling horse, and it looks like he's going to run to that level over fences. He could be an exciting novice for the summer, into the autumn, I hope.' In the opener, Seán O'Keeffe got it very right aboard the Sean Aherne-trained Get It Right, setting the fractions from the outset and keeping plenty in the tank to fend off the persistent late challenge of market leader Crowsatedappletart. In the absence of would-be favourite Look To The West, only three went to post for the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares' Chase. Je T'Ai Porte took over at the top of the market and did a good job of justifying that position. Keith Donoghue allowed the Gavin Cromwell-trained 4-5 chance to lead early and thereafter she remained in control despite A Law Of Her Own, who eventually lost second place to Justabitofyours, throwing down a credible challenge early in the straight. Clonshire River gained a long overdue first success inside the rails by taking the Anglo Printers Handicap Chase for Eddie and Patrick Harty and jockey Kieren Buckley. Still relatively lightly raced over fences, this was a decent effort and one he should be able to build upon. 'It's been a long time coming with this fella,' admitted Eddie Harty. 'His first run for us was a very good run, and he looked like he could go on to things. However, he went backwards but had little bits of issues, in fairness to the horse. This was a while coming, but he likes the summer ground, and we freshened him up for this. His jumping won it for him, really — he jumped really well.' Iceberg Theory built on a most promising chasing debut by taking the Munster Drilling Beginners' Chase, despite the ground being quicker than ideal. Conor Stone-Walsh set off in front, but his mount was unable to hold his position on the ground. However, the young rider kept him close enough to mount a late challenge. As Boston Rover ran around on the approach to the final fence, he jumped upsides and then picked up better than the long-time leader to win with a couple of lengths to spare. Winning trainer Paul Nolan said: 'You can see by his galloping, he bends his knee, but it's hard not to take your chance in a 120-or-less-over-hurdles race. 'He has had a few nice runs. His run was good the last day, against Henry's mare (Majestic Force). He was sketchy early on in that race and got himself detached a bit, but Seán (Flanagan) looked after him and got him going late. On the basis of that, he had a great chance today, and we had to let him take his chance.'
Irish Independent
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Tributes paid as Rachael Blackmore announces retirement from racing after record-breaking career – ‘I feel the time is right'
Triumph in the world's most famous steeplechase on Minella Times was one of many extraordinary feats by the Tipperary jockey as she left an incredible mark in racing, most notably for women in the sport. Blackmore shattered so many glass ceilings along the way with victory in the 2020 Champion Hurdle aboard Honeysuckle helping to parachute the Killenaule native to be crowned leading rider at the Cotswolds. The 35-year-old built up a strong association with Henry de Bromhead and it was with the Waterford trainer that she enjoyed most of her biggest successes, highlighted by A Plus Tard's victory in the 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. In a statement, Blackmore said 'My days of being a jockey have come to an end. 'I feel the time is right. I'm sad but I'm also incredibly grateful for what my life has been for the past 16 years. I just feel so lucky, to have been legged up on the horses I have, and to have experienced success I never even dreamt could be possible.' Thanking those who helped her during her career, Blackmore had special praise for de Bromhead, adding; 'A conversation between Eddie O'Leary and Henry de Bromhead in a taxi on the way to Aintree took my career to a whole new level. Eddie got me in the door at Knockeen, and what came next was unimaginable: Honeysuckle, A Plus Tard, Minella Indo, Captain Guinness, Bob Olinger, Minella Times, among many others... all with one thing in common-Henry de Bromhead. He's a phenomenal trainer, who brought out the best in me. Without Henry, my story is very different.' Shark Hanlon provided Blackmore with her very first winner back in 2011 and paid tribute to the ground-breaking jockey. When Stowaway Peal won at Thurles in February that year, few could have predicted Blackmore would go on to count the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and Grand National among her big-race wins, although Hanlon never doubted her courage in the saddle. 'From the first day she started with me she was an amazing girl. She was point-to-pointing at the time and what frightened me about her was she was so brave and I was afraid she'd get hurt,' said Hanlon. 'I remember asking her to go professional, she didn't want to and her parents didn't want to, but I said if it didn't work out she could go back (to being amateur). 'The big thing she wanted to win was the point-to-point ladies' championship and I annoyed her because I took her out of that! That was her big aim though, no such thing as the Gold Cup or Grand National, just that title. 'I'm delighted she went out on her own terms, she rang me just before she released it and it brought tears to my eyes, she has been so much part of our family over the years, my mother and father adored her. 'She's an amazing woman. I was so lucky she came to me and I was able to provide her with her first winner. 'She was so brave when she first started, she was like a spring when she fell, she used to bounce back up. I remember I got phone calls from people asking what I was thinking in asking her to turn pro but it's some story. 'She won't leave racing because she loves horses, like us all. 'The last big winner she had for me was Hewick in the Bet365 Gold Cup (2023) which was nice. 'I'll never forget when my lad Paddy had first started here and he was on the gallop on a white pony and Rachael was leading. We have a nice picture of it, it's days like that you'll never forget.' Patrick Mullins lived with Blackmore and her partner Brian Hayes for 10 years and said it was a 'privilege' to see her career develop as it did. 'I had a front row seat for the whole journey and it's been extraordinary and a privilege to watch,' he said. 'She did it all, I don't think anyone has done it better. Her race record stands up with any of the best jockeys. She rode as many Cheltenham Festival winners as Richard Dunwoody, which is incredible. 'If you look back at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival when she had the six winners and was leading rider, I think she won a bumper, a hurdle, a chase from two miles to three miles. I think that week she showed she had the full array of talent and those four days were extraordinary – I don't think anyone has ridden Cheltenham better than she did that week. 'Even this year, to come back from the injury and Henry's horses were running poorly when she came back, but she got to Cheltenham and put in two peaches of a ride aboard Bob Olinger and Air Of Entitlement. 'She was a woman for the big stage, but made her name on the small stage. To get to where she was from where she came from was extraordinary and it won't be the same without her.' Blackmore's victory aboard A Plus Tard in the 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup was one of six Festival winners for the rider in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud. Cheveley Park director Richard Thompson said: 'You can't really put into words what Rachael achieved. 'The Gold Cup win, what a day. She obviously rode A Plus Tard the year before when he was second to Minella Indo in the Covid year and 12 months later they gave me and the family and Cheveley Park one of the best days we've ever had on a racecourse without question. 'Rachael was obviously the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, it was a year after Covid and the crowds were back. Rachael winning the Gold Cup was the story and seeing her in the red, white and blue made it a day we'll never forget. 'It's an astonishing CV she built up, winning 18 Cheltenham Festival races, six for us including a Gold Cup, so we had some great days with her. 'Cheveley Park's bond with Rachael will be there forever because of what she did for us at Cheltenham and in a number of Grade Ones generally, with A Plus Tard's Gold Cup win being the icing on the cake.' Blackmore's famous Grand National success came aboard the JP McManus-owned Minella Times in 2021 and the owner's racing manager Frank Berry praised her achievements in the saddle. He said: 'What can you say about her career? She's had an unbelievable career, she's done all things that everyone wants to do and she's a lovely person. 'Winning the Grand National on Minella Times was an incredible day, she's won all the big races and she's retiring in one piece. I'm delighted for her.' Blackmore twice finished second in the Irish jockeys' championship, finishing just eight winners behind Paul Townend in the 2020-21 season. He said: 'I know Rachael as much as anyone with Jody (Townend, jockey sister) coming through in the sport and she smashed the barriers. 'She won everything and gave me a big fright in a championship one season as well. She burst on the scene and had a relatively short career but then rode right at the top level. 'She was amazing and I wish her all the best for the future.'
Irish Examiner
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Rachael Blackmore: Queen of Cheltenham will be badly missed by the sport she changed
Rachael Blackmore, the most successful female rider of all time, announced her retirement from race riding on Monday evening. A statement put out on social media brought down the curtain on the career of a lady whose success has been as great for the sport as it has been for the jockey herself. From the time she rode her first winner, aboard the Shark Hanlon-trained Stowaway Pearl at Thurles on February 10, 2011, she was destined to be a success, but just how far she could go was to unfold in a stellar career which saw her smash through glass ceiling after glass ceiling. Having started off with Hanlon and then having taken the brave decision to turn professional in 2015, she brought her success to a whole new level through her association with trainer Henry de Bromhead. With her own determination and class, and the help of the Co Waterford trainer, the Killenaule, Co Tipperary native rose to the very top of the sport and became the first lady rider to win one of the championship races at the Cheltenham Festival when guiding Honeysuckle to victory in the first of two Champion Hurdles, in 2021. She ended that meeting with a remarkable six winners, which earned the leading rider at the meeting award, but that was just the start of something truly special. Already long-established as a leading light to those familiar with the sport, she introduced herself to the much wider world just three weeks later when becoming the first lady to win the world's most famous race, the Aintree Grand National, aboard the de Bromhead-trained Minella Times. That success transcended the racing world to such an extent that she was crowned RTÉ Sports Person of the Year and BBC Sports Personality World Sports Star of the Year. Less than 12 months later, in another Festival to remember, she set more records, becoming the first lady rider to win racing's blue riband, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, aboard A Plus Tard, and did so just days after recording a second Champion Hurdle win aboard Honeysuckle. That season meeting also included a Grade One novice chase success aboard Bob Olinger. She did not know it at that time, of course, but that fellow would hold a special place in her career as he would become her 18th and final Cheltenham Festival winner when winning the Stayers' Hurdle at this year's meeting. In doing so, he completed the set of championship race success for herself and trainer Henry de Bromhead. It is neither fanciful nor blindly romantic to suggest she was the queen of Cheltenham, as anyone fortunate enough to have been at Prestbury Park on the Tuesday of this year's meeting will never forget the reception she received when Air Of Entitlement, a relatively unheralded mare, earned her a return to the Festival winner's enclosure after a pulsating finish to the mares' novice hurdle. Standing on the shoulders of the likes of Caroline Beasley, who was the first woman to ride a winner at the Cheltenham Festival, Gee Armytage, Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh, to name but a few trailblazers, Blackmore was an immensely tough jockey, whose brave and positive riding earned her a place amongst the best riders of her generation, male or female. Winning a jockeys' championship proved a bridge too far but while she faced the might of the Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott stables, like everything else she did in her career, she gave everything in its pursuit. In the 2020/2021 season she won a remarkable 92 races in Ireland and that took her to second place in the championship, eight behind champion jockey Paul Townend. It was her second time finishing runner-up to Townend, having also done so two years earlier. In bowing out after 10 years as a professional, with 524 winners in Ireland alone, she leaves a huge hole in a sport which owes her an eternal debt of gratitude. As racing navigated choppy waters, Blackmore wrote all the right headlines for the industry with her brilliance in the saddle. This truly is the end of an era.
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Blackmore - the humble pioneer who transformed racing
"I don't feel male or female right now. I don't even feel human."A memorable line from Rachael Blackmore after she became the first female jockey to win the Grand National when triumphing on Minella Times in she retires from the saddle aged 35, Blackmore can rightly be called a game changer who was among the best of her a sport in which male and female riders compete on a level playing field, punters did not focus on whether she was a man or woman. She was just a top self-effacing pioneer went about setting landmarks with a quiet humility as the first woman to:Win the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, with Honeysuckle, in 2021Become the Cheltenham Festival meeting's leading rider, in the same yearLand the Cheltenham Gold Cup, with A Plus Tard in 2022 Win the National a few weeks later The daughter of a dairy farmer and a school teacher, she rode ponies as a child near her home in Killenaule, County Tipperary, in the Republic of gained a degree in equine science with hopes of becoming a vet but combined her studies with riding out and competing as an first winner came aboard Stowaway Pearl for John 'Shark' Hanlon at Thurles in 2011, and she turned professional four years of her success came through an association with trainer Henry de Bromhead, while some of her early opportunities can be attributed to Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary and his Gigginstown House Stud team."We identified Rachael early on as a very good jockey - not a female jockey - and we put her on all the Gigginstown Horses with Henry and Joseph [O'Brien]," he said after her National victory."Her hard work and intelligence has done all the rest." Instinct, timing, tactical awareness and strength all played a part in her story. But also the ability to bounce back from falls and injury, plus sheer hard she rode six winners to be leading jockey at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival, she may not have returned to grand fanfare at a meeting held behind closed doors because of Covid-19 restrictions, but the impact was still felt. Her tally was more than the entire British training Blackmore, and fellow jockeys Lizzie Kelly and Bryony Frost, successes for female jockeys at Cheltenham were a rarity and largely came through amateur riders Katie Walsh and Nina Walsh, Carberry and Kelly now retired and Frost moving to France after finding opportunities limited since winning a bullying case against fellow jockey Robbie Dunne, it will be interesting to see if other women can rise to the fore in jump two days ago, Hollie Doyle passed Hayley Turner's record for winners by a female jockey on the Flat, but Blackmore was only of only two professional women - the other being Isobel Williams - riding at this year's Cheltenham Festival. While Blackmore has not outlined the reasons for her retirement, Walsh and Carberry stopped at similar ages before starting ended their careers with winners at Ireland's showpiece Punchestown Festival and maybe Blackmore intended to do the same, but she unusually ended the recent meeting without a suffered a bad neck injury in a fall earlier this season and only returned to action in December after three months took success for women to another level, competing for a historic Irish champion jockey title before twice finishing runner-up to Paul achievements transcended racing. Victory in the National, watched by an estimated 500 million people worldwide, made headlines around the globe, and she was voted World Sport Star at the 2021 BBC Sports Personality awards."The support has been incredible. I got such a kick out of being on that list of nominees," she nominees included tennis star Novak Djokovic, boxing great Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and American football quarterback Tom whose partner Brian Hayes is also a jockey, did not revel in the limelight - she preferred to get on with the business of riding winners - but spoke thoughtfully when Bromhead said she was a great support after his 13-year-old son Jack died in a riding accident in September pair's victory with Honeysuckle in the horse's swansong in the Mares' Hurdle at Cheltenham in March 2023 sparked jubilant and emotional grabbed every vantage point to cheer the winner into the paddock. The roars were for the trainer and horse, but the rider too. Just mention the name 'Rachael' at the races, and everyone knew who you Honeysuckle in the winner's enclosure, a rainbow appeared on the horizon."We all wish a very special kid could be here today but he's watching down on us," said partnership with Honeysuckle was a great match. Seventeen wins from 19 races, including four at the Cheltenham Festival. All with the same jockey on will be remembered for a series of firsts, and potentially paving the way for others."Ah, look, it's brilliant, but I won't be the last. I'm delighted for myself anyway," she said after winning the National."I just hope it shows it doesn't matter, male or female. Plenty of people have gone before me and done that - Katie Walsh was third here on Seabass. All those things help girls coming along, but I don't think it's a major talking point any more."When Blackmore won the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard, she earned praise from the Cheltenham Festival's all-time leading rider Ruby Walsh."She's inspiring kids everywhere. It's incredible the interest she's driving in the sport. You need role models like that for the sport and the industry, she's box office," he the 'This Girl Can' campaign, launched 10 years ago, encouraged more women to be active, Rachael Blackmore wanted to realise a dream of being at the summit of her sport. This girl did.
The Independent
12-05-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Groundbreaking jockey announces retirement from racing
Legendary jockey Rachael Blackmore, the first woman to win the Grand National, has announced her retirement from racing at age 35. Blackmore achieved numerous historic wins, including the 2021 Grand National, the 2021 Champion Hurdle, and the 2022 Cheltenham Gold Cup. She has expressed gratitude for her successful 16-year career, highlighting the support of her family, trainers like Henry de Bromhead, and various sponsors. Blackmore's "magical" double at Cheltenham this year included winning the Stayers' Hurdle, marking a significant achievement in her career. She says she is saddened by the end of her riding days, but feels incredibly fortunate for the opportunities and successes she experienced in the sport.
