Further tributes have been paid to Rachael Blackmore following the trailblazing jockey’s retirement from race-riding last week (12 May).
“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,” said Rachael at the time.
Her achievements include the 2021 Grand National plus 33 Grade One wins, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup (2022), two Champion Hurdles (2021 and 2022), and the Queen Mother Champion Chase (2024).
Her career started with trainer John “Shark” Hanlon, who told H&H Rachael was always “so dedicated”, and added that although she has always credited the start he gave her, “she did it herself”.
“She had a real strong drive,” he said, adding that he is “delighted she has gone out on her own terms”. “From the beginning she was a very hard worker. She was in college, and she was never late for work in her life.”
Her connection with Mr Hanlon came about via Davy Russell, who recommended Rachael, then an amateur, to the trainer when he was looking for a jockey for Stowaway Pearl for a ladies’ race at Thurles in 2011. She won, and followed that up by winning the first point-to-point ride she had for Mr Hanlon at the Horse & Jockey. This marked the start of a partnership that Rachael described as “the catalyst for what was to come”.
“When she started with me, all she wanted was to be ladies’ point-to-point champion, and I ruined that for her, because we stopped her in the middle of the championship [campaign] to turn pro. Thank goodness we did!” Mr Hanlon said.
“She was such a hard worker, and point-to-pointing she was getting all the wrong rides… I was afraid she was going to get hurt. That’s the reason I suggested she changed [to turn professional].
“She said, ‘Are you mad?’, and I said, ‘I’ll support you. I’ll do the best I can for you. I won’t be able to get you to the top, but I’ll give you a go and if it doesn’t work, you can go back to being an amateur again in six months’ time’. She rode winners from the start, a lot for me, and had a lot of good outside rides.”
Rachael’s first winner as a professional was with Most Honourable at Clonmel in 2015, the year she turned pro.
Mr Hanlon, whose support helped her become Irish champion conditional in 2017, remembered a moment that summed up Rachael’s attention to detail and care for horses.
“She’d been here maybe a year or two at the time. It was an April day, the weather was changing, and I had gone racing,” he said. “She was passing by the road, saw the horses had their rugs on and thought they were getting a bit warm.”
She stopped to check them and took their rugs off to make sure they would be comfortable on the warming spring day.
“She was only a young girl at the time, that just shows what kind of a character she was. No stone unturned,” he said.
Rachael’s move to Henry de Bromhead’s Knockeen operation came after a conversation in a taxi to Aintree between Henry and Gigginstown House Stud’s Eddie O’Leary.
“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,” she said.
Her seminal year came in 2021, for which she was voted BBC Sports Personality’s world sport star of the year and crowned Ireland’s sportswoman of the year. Her leading rider title at the Cheltenham Festival with six wins was followed by her historic triumph in the Grand National aboard JP McManus’s Minella Times.
In 2022, she broke more barriers by partnering A Plus Tard to Cheltenham Gold Cup glory in the famous Cheveley Park Stud colours.
“She gave us a hugely momentous and exciting day,” Cheveley Park Stud managing director Chris Richardson told H&H.
“That was just a sensational moment, because I remember the late David Thompson [who owned Cheveley Park Stud with his wife Patricia] saying that the two races in the National Hunt calendar he wanted to win were the Grand National and the Cheltenham Gold Cup. And he did both, Party Politics winning the Grand National in 1992 and A Plus Tard the Gold Cup in 2022.”
In the space of six years, Cheveley Park Stud had 26 Grade One winners, of which Rachael rode 18. Six of Rachael’s 18 Cheltenham Festival winners were also aboard Cheveley Park Stud horses.
Mr Richardson added: “She was just a natural equestrian. She had a natural flow and agility that was so evident and she bonded with every horse she rode – an enviable natural ability to gel with a horse, become a part of that horse. To watch the fluidity of the movement of her jumping – it was just a joy to watch her ride.
“It’s been so lucky that we’ve had some phenomenal years, through a legacy that David Thompson put together and invested in; it was such a wonderful story.”
Retired dual Grand National-winning jockey Davy Russell told H&H: “She was fully, totally and utterly committed to being a professional jockey – she rolled the dice and she got the due rewards.
“She was as good on the ordinary day, the midweek day, as she was on the big day. She never succumbed to pressure or the big occasion, it never caught her out. She was very, very brave.
“Rachael would grow an inch when she’d go to the big meetings, where other people just don’t have the ability to do that.”
He added: “She’s a credit to herself, to her family and to those around her. She broke through the ceiling.”
Henry de Bromhead paid tribute to Rachael, sharing a picture of the two of them together with the caption: “The end of an era. Thank you, Rachael Blackmore, for everything.”
He paid further tribute to her on Racing TV, adding: “I was really surprised when she told me on Monday, but I’m delighted for her. As usual, she timed it to perfection!
“It’s incredible what she achieved and we were lucky to be there with her.”
On what made her so good, Mr de Bromhead said: “Her natural ability, for a start, but then knowing how hard you have to work to get to the top – and she did. She worked harder than everybody else, and she got there.
“She had so many great attributes as a jockey and as a person. I think the best way to sum her up is just pure class.”
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