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Irish Times
17-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Malachy Clerkin: In Rachael Blackmore, horse racing had maybe its greatest ever asset
The hardest thing about writing about horse racing is writing about horse racing. To most people, one horse is no different to the next. They run in circles around big open fields, sometimes jumping over things and sometimes not, with little lads on their backs waving sticks. The commentator's voice rises through the race, and when it's over, there's a brief pause to talk about how rich the bookmakers got. Some of us love it. We're suckers for the thrill of a close one, for the mental calculations everyone's making as they jump the last, for the bottomless courage of the jockeys. Sometimes there's money down, sometimes there isn't. The race is run, the result is called, and a few minutes later, another one goes off somewhere else. Out in the world, though, horse racing leaves virtually no footprint. It is an incorrigibly niche sport, a small slice of a small slice of life. Stop 100 people in the street and ask them to tell you the difference between a hurdle and a fence. Between Leopardstown and Punchestown. Between Paul Townend and Jack Kennedy. Whatever number you think will give you three correct answers, you can probably halve it. So that's the battle. Here's this great sport, full of nuance and intrigue and derring-do and it's completely lost on vast swathes of the sporting public. If they think about it at all, they think in terms of gambling and, let's be honest, who wants to write about that world any more than they have to? Finding a way to make horse racing accessible and interesting to a broad audience is just a tough sell. READ MORE Rachael Blackmore was the first professional female jumps rider in Ireland for almost 30 years. Photograph:Into that world walked Rachael Blackmore a decade ago. A godsend. A jockey who didn't look like the rest of them. Who didn't sound like the rest of them. Who didn't have a famous family name. The first professional female jumps rider in Ireland for almost 30 years. She was a once-in-a-generation story, whether she liked it or not. Famously, she did not. Very much did not, in fact. The first time I interviewed her, we met at Griffith College – she was coming up to Dublin one night a week to do a business degree. This was November 2015, a couple of months after she had ridden her first winner as a pro. She was polite and careful and wary and, despite all her efforts to the contrary, completely fascinating. 'It won't be that big, will it?' she asked a few minutes into the chat. 'Just a small little thing? I don't want it too big. It's not that big a story. Just leave it as a little column at the side. Neat and tidy.' Rachael Blackmore's office was the weigh room and her co-workers were a rolling cast of a few dozen young men chasing the same dream. Photograph:Even then, you got the overwhelming sense of her discomfort in the spotlight. She was borderline aggressive in her modesty. She was no fool and she understood why you were interested. But when it came right down to it, she had four winners in a professional career that was eight months old at that point. No other jockey in the weigh room with those sort of numbers had the outside world asking after them. That was always part of her leeriness with the press. Her office was the weigh room and her co-workers were a rolling cast of a few dozen young men chasing the same dream. She had to face them every day in the hothouse of cut-throat sport. The only way she could feel comfortable was to rise through the ranks without getting special treatment from anyone. From the media most of all. My father-in-law was an avid racing man. He died in early 2019, at the ripe old age of 85. Right up to the end, he would happily pass most afternoons with his paper open at the racing page and a 10-cent yankee scribbled on a betting slip beside it, just for the interest. He had seen everyone come and go in the game for decades. Despite Rachael Blackmore's misgivings and protestations, she was something special. Photograph:It might have been 2017 or thereabouts when we were watching the racing one afternoon and a Blackmore horse beat one of his selections to the line. 'A good jock,' he said in defeat, which was always his seal of approval. If you got a 'good jock' out of Pat Doyle, then a good jock you were. A few years later, on the morning of the 2021 Grand National, my then six-year-old daughter was handed the newspaper and asked did she wanted to pick a horse for the big race later that day. 'Is Rachael Blackmore in this?' she asked. When told that she was, she looked through the card and found her name and we put €1 each way on Minella Times. Somewhere in there is the story of one of the greatest assets horse racing will ever have. Someone who, despite her misgivings and protestations, was actually special. Who offered a way into the sport that was common to everyone from primary school kids to pensioners. And who did it all in her own careful, self-contained way in civilian life before unleashing a ferocious competitor when the tapes went up. Rachael Blackmore on Allaho comes home to win the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham. Photograph: Francesca Altoft/Inpho My favourite Blackmore ride wasn't the Grand National or the Gold Cup or all those gorgeous days on Honeysuckle. It was on Allaho in the 2021 Ryanair Chase, where she bucked out and made all the running from the front. She set such a relentless gallop that six horses in behind her had to be pulled up. That was one more than the previous four Ryanairs combined. The glorious swagger of that ride, the sheer unapologetic confidence Blackmore showed in dominating the race, was such a contrast to the person she presents to the world. To watch her express that side of her on the biggest stage and leave everyone in her dust was something genuinely moving to behold. Her retirement this week is a happy story, sad as the sport is to see her go. She got to call her own way out, unscathed and unbowed, in her own time and on her own terms. Nobody deserves it more.
The Independent
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘She smashed barriers': Rachael Blackmore tributes flood in after ground-breaking jockey retires
Figures from across the world of horse racing have rushed to pay tribute to Rachael Blackmore after the legendary Irish jockey announced her retirement on 12 May. Blackmore, who became the first female jockey to win the Grand National in its 182-year history when she rode Minella Times in 2021, has called time on a glittering career that also included a Cheltenham Gold Cup win in 2022 and several other victories at Prestbury Park. The 35-year-old said she felt the time was right to retire now – after two more wins at Cheltenham this year – but that she was '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,' she said when announcing her decision. And fellow jockey, Grand National and Gold Cup winner Paul Townend, said that Blackmore 'smashed the barriers' in the sport. "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,' he added. Patrick Mullins, winner of the 2025 Grand National, lived with Blackmore and her partner Brian Hayes for 10 years, and also praised Blackmore's ability and range of success. '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. "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,' he added. In her retirement statement, Blackmore thanked trainer John 'Shark' Hanlon, who provided her with her first winner, and the Irishman was quick to praise the outgoing jockey. 'From the first day she started with me she was an amazing girl. "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's an amazing woman. I was so lucky she came to me and I was able to provide her with her first winner. She won't leave racing because she loves horses, like us all,' he added. Blackmore's Gold Cup win came aboard A Plus Tard in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud, and director Richard Thompson said that it is difficult to put into words what the jockey achieved. "The Gold Cup win, what a day. 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. "Cheveley Park's bond with Rachael will be there forever because of what she did for us at Cheltenham,' he added. And JP McManus' racing manager, Frank Berry, added that Blackmore has "had an unbelievable career' having won the National on McManus-owned Minella Times. "Winning the Grand National was an incredible day, she's won all the big races and she's retiring in one piece. I'm delighted for her,' he said.
The Sun
13-05-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Willie Mullins set to gatecrash Royal Ascot with ‘exciting' Gold Cup horse bought for £100,000
WILLIE MULLINS has set his sights on gatecrashing Royal Ascot - with an 'exciting' £100,000 horse who won on debut. Sober will see Champagne corks popping in the winner's enclosure if he can get close in next month's Gold Cup. 2 2 A two-time Group 2 winner in France, Mullins purchased the former Andre Fabre-trained runner at the Arqana Arc Sale in October last year. Never one to rush his top talent, Mullins kept Sober, who also finished third in the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak in 2022, to the Closutton gallops through the winter. But the six-year-old son of Camelot was finally unleashed in a seemingly run-of-the-mill 2m4f novice hurdle at Killarney on Monday. Initially available at 5-6, Sober was backed off the boards to win at 4-11 under Mullins' No1 rider Paul Townend. Although jumping didn't really look his game - he won £275,000 racing on the Flat in France - Sober, who punters labelled an 'exciting' prospect, warmed to his task nicely in the end. And after the last he always had the 120-rated runner-up Arch Empire, trained by Gordon Elliott and giving Sober 6lbs, held. Bookies weren't that impressed by the manner of victory, keeping him as big as 33-1 for the Ascot feature. And he will have to improve absolutely bundles to see off the likes of Aidan O'Brien's defending champion Kyprios. But champion British and Irish jumps trainer Mullins - who recently snapped up 'the most exciting horse for next season' at the sales - clearly holds Sober in high regards. And he could be following the same path to greatness as another of his stable stars. Ebor and County Hurdle king Absurde won the very same Killarney race two years ago. He then went to Ascot and finished second to Vauban in the Copper Horse Handicap before winning the £300,000 York race under Frankie Dettori. An awesome dual-purpose performer, he has picked up mega cash finishing seventh and fifth in the Melbourne Cup and recently added a Sussex Champion Hurdle to his CV. The paralells don't end there. Both Absurde and Sober were bred by racing's richest owners, the multi-billionaire brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer. Bosses of luxury fashion brand Chanel, they have an estimated combined wealth of £50billion and have bred several Group 1 winners, including 2012 Arc winner Solemia and Breeders' Cup legend Goldikova. Townend was impressed after the debut showing - and hinted his future lies on the Flat. He said: "Sober has got loads of ability and hopefully hurdling will just sharpen him up. "I was losing a length at a lot of hurdles and he hangs a bit. "He will jump well in time and I'd say it was a good performance to win." Commercial content notice: Taking one of the offers featured in this article may result in a payment to The Sun. You should be aware brands pay fees to appear in the highest placements on the page. 18+. T&Cs apply. Remember to gamble responsibly A responsible gambler is someone who:
Irish Examiner
08-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Townend picks up where he left off with Tipperary success
Crowned champion jockey for the seventh time at Punchestown last Saturday, Paul Townend made a perfect start to the new season when scoring on board his first mount of the 2025-2026 campaign, Gold Dancer, in the Hotel Minella Beginners Chase in Tipperary. The Gigginstown-owned, Willie Mullins-trained six-year-old, raced prominently, jumped soundly in the main, and, in the closing stages, saw off Le Coq Hardi by four lengths. 'He's been so disappointing, but had a run over fences,' said Townend. 'Chasing was always going to be his game. He makes lengths over his fences and it'll take a good novice to lie up with him. I'd say we'll keep going with him.' Townend was expected to complete a double for the Closutton team on You Oughta Know in the Ryans Cleaning beginners Chase. However, the 11-8 favourite blundered and unseated the champion jockey at the second fence. Victory in this event went to the 134-rated, Gordon Elliott-trained Western Fold, positively ridden by Danny Gilligan to put his experience to good use. The six-year-old, having his sixth run over fences, jumped impeccably and relished every yard of the longer trip, powering home eight lengths clear of Oscars Brother. Representing Elliott, Lisa O'Neill said: 'He had plenty of experience and his jumping improved as he went along. Danny gave him a lovely, positive ride and said he got the run of the race. It's great to get him on the scoreboard. And I''d say he'll keep going through the summer.' Edward O'Grady registered his first success since November when St Faz, successful on the Flat and over hurdles, opened his chasing account in the Botanica International Handicap Chase. Ridden by Darragh O'Keeffe, the 5-2 favourite took command at the second last and stayed on to beat One Last Tango by two and a quarter lengths. 'The horses have been running well without winning, so I'm very pleased this fellow has won,' commented the veteran trainer, 'He's a five-year-old, so might progress and he'll run in those novice handicaps through the summer.' The father and son combination of trainer Alex and amateur Luke Burke-Ott struck in the Join Racing TV Now With A Free Month Trial Handicap Chase when Inchidaly Copper recovered from a last fence blunder to outpoint the flattering In The Trenches by a neck. 'The main thing is to keep him fresh and he's only in six weeks, so we thought he'd need the run,' said the trainer, 'I'd say he trains himself and we had no real plan for him. The distance was shorter than ideal for him.' Another father/son team was on the mark in the Buy Tickets Online Novice Hunters Chase as The Rebel County, owned and trained by Garrett Ahern in Bartlemy, County Cork and giving his son Josh a first racecourse success, saw off favourite Cause For Comment and Keep On Dreaming. 'He loved that summer ground,' declared the winning rider. 'He was wicked keen with me and I kept wide for the best ground. I gave him a squeeze turning into the straight and away he went.' The only four-year-old in the field, Chosen Comrade, described by her trainer Peter Fahey as 'not the biggest, but a nice staying filly', made an impressive debut in the mares' bumper, beating favourite Katie's Melody comfortably, and proving another winner for in-form John Gleeson. And, successful with I'm Slippy at Fairyhouse last month, Robert Tyner and Josh Williamson teamed-up again to take the geldings' bumper with six-year-old Quakerstown scorer Stanners Glen.
Extra.ie
01-05-2025
- Business
- Extra.ie
Here's how much a pint will cost you at Punchestown
Punchestown has returned for its 2025 festival, with thousands of punters set to descend racecourse. But with marquee races such as the Champion Chase, the Novice Chase and Gold Cup, punters will be heading to Kildare for the sport of kings and one of the biggest festivals in Ireland. And outside of betting, people will also be heading to the bars for those sweet pints — but some may want to put a little more money on those long odds horses, after the price of a pint has been revealed. Galopin Des Champs, with Paul Townend up, clear the last on their way to winning the Ladbrokes Punchestown Gold Cup Chase. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile According to a drinks menu seen by a pint of Guinness will set you back €7, while a 0.0% Guinness will cost €6.80. Smithwicks is also €7, while Rockshore Lager is 50c more expensive, coming in at €7.50 — the same price as a pint of Carlsberg. If you want a pint of cider in the hot weather, it'll cost you, too, as a Rockshore Lager costs €7.80. Poretti is the most expensive pint, coming in at €8, while all half pints are €4. A regular pint of Guinness costs €7. Pic: When it comes to bottles, your two options are Rockshore Lager or Carlsberg — which cost €7 and €6.50 respectively. Spirits range in price from €6.80 to €7.10, but mixers and soft drinks are where they'll get you, as tonics, ginger ales, and soda waters are all €3.50. Should you want minerals with your spirit, however, that'll set you back €4, while juice is €3.90 and a water is €3.80. For the big spenders that may end up landing huge bets, the champagne and wine are far and away the most expensive beverages in Punchestown — with a glass of wine costing €9, and a Prosecco Snipe setting you back €15. Martin Skelly and Marty Morrissey at the Ladbrokes Gold Cup Day at the Punchestown Racing Festival. Pic: Brian McEvoy Photography The bottles are the most expensive, however, with a bottle of champagne and bottles of champagne rosé costing a massive €140 and €180 respectively. The feature race of the day was the Ladbrokes Gold Cup on Wednesday (April 30), with punters watching Galopin Des Champ bounce back from disappointment at the Cheltenham Festival to land the Grade One race. Longford woman Oniesa Owens was also crowned the best dressed woman at day two of the festival.
