Latest news with #Killenaule
Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Rachael Blackmore retires as a boundary pusher and racing great but it could have been so different if not for one phone call, writes DOMINIC KING
Through it all, she never forgot the phone call. Rachael Blackmore never revealed who was on the other end of the line but their response, at a time of great need, was career defining. There will be much time to discuss the days when she took the history books and cleared the pages to write her own chapters but, as this glorious journey ends, it is crucial to go back to the start and appreciate how the doors threatened to slide. 'When you start out, you try to make yourself known and get yourself seen,' she told Mail Sport December 2023. 'You want people to give you rides but there are always challenges. I remember ringing up a trainer — I won't say who it was — when I was an amateur. 'I was a 7lb claimer, looking to ride in a fillies' bumper; the weights were quite light. I just decided this day to chance it, to see if they needed someone. I got through. 'Hi, it's Rachael Blackmore here. Are you fixed up for the bumper on Sunday?' 'They said: 'Oh, hi Rachael, how are you? Who do you have again?'' They thought I was an agent. So I said: 'No, no. It's just me. I'm just trying to get a ride.' But they said: 'No, it's all ok. We're fixed up.' They were the knocks. I'd just put the phone down and know I'd have to start again.' Thank heavens she did. Athletes make it when they are simply known by their first name and, though she may blush, 'Rachael' made it. Life, she realised, changed when she drove through her home village of Killenaule, Count Tipperary in April 2021 and saw giant posters of herself on walls but she made it change. From that first winner in Thurles — Stowaway Pearl for Shark Hanlon — back in February 2011, Blackmore wouldn't let anyone tell her it couldn't be done and she went on a journey that took her from obscurity to wonderland, the zenith arriving in spring four years ago. Cast your mind back to think how miserable that period was, as the pandemic raged. Through it all, racing kept going and nobody went better than Blackmore, who pushed boundaries and invited little girls to think anything was possible. From Cheltenham in March, where six winners enabled her to become the first female to be crowned the Festival's leading rider, on she went to Liverpool and steered Minella Times to victory in the Randox Grand National. It was, in its own way, a tragedy nobody was there to cheer her home. Instead, that success — the kind which puts racing on the front pages and leads TV news bulletins — was memorable to those on course for how her screams echoed off those cavernous empty stands, the realisation that something truly staggering was happening. 'God bless her, Rachael is wonderful,' JP McManus, the owner of Minella Times, told this correspondent a year later, when the pair returned to Aintree for their title defence and that is precisely what everyone who went to see her ride felt. When crowds were allowed back through the gates, courses found that attendances were increasing, significantly so, if Blackmore had rides booked; bookmakers would always be wary of her mounts in big races as she had 'The Frankie Factor', the popularity to lead a horse's price to collapse. Her weighing room colleagues had realised they had to have their wits about them if she went off in front — Blackmore had a beautiful way of playing rope-a-dope, stringing a field along then kicking away — but she could ride any type of race, the kind of jockey who retained everyone's confidence. 'Her first winner for us was Poker Party at Naas in January 2019,' said Brian Acheson, whose horses run under the banner of Robcour. 'She has been a constant with the team, right until the end. She has given our family so many highs, such as guiding Bob Olinger to win four times at Cheltenham. 'Rachael, as a jockey and a person, will always be remembered as one of a kind. Stylish and graceful yet determined and tenacious. She has been consistently one of the top talents in National Hunt racing in Ireland and Britain over the last five years and will be missed by us all.' There is no question, for the sport in general, that losing Blackmore from the track is a blow. She was an ambassador in a helmet and a pair of breeches, someone who would never say 'no' if there was an engagement to visit a hospital or see schoolchildren before a major festival. She loves engaging with the next generation and was once left speechless when fan mail addressed to 'Rachael Blackmore, Ireland' arrived at her home, the consequence of a youngster with dreams having seen her conquer Aintree. This, arguably, is her greatest legacy. Winning 18 races at The Festival, striking up an alliance with the wonder mare Honeysuckle, lifting the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard in 2022 — it was all huge but that remarkable day at Aintree carried so much more. Blackmore sent out the message to everyone young and old, as she bounded clear on Minella Times, that magic can happen if you are prepared to never give up. The easy thing to do would have been to pursue a career in equine science, which she has a degree in, but nothing good comes easy. Instead, she took the blows and the rejections put her head down and formed an alliance with Henry de Bromhead that, in her words, 'changed her life' — how appropriate that her 574th and final success should be for him on Ma Belle Etoille at Cork last Saturday. With good reason, she wanted to end her career on her terms and who could blame her, particularly after suffering a significant neck injury in a fall at Downpatrick last September, and now she has gone from the track. Just like that phone call, we won't forget her.
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.
