Since 1988 the Sunday Times
Sportswomen of the Year awards
have celebrated the remarkable
contribution that women make to
sport in this country, recognising the
achievements of our elite
competitors as well as grassroots
volunteers and coaches.
The shortlists and winners of the
main award, the disability
sportswoman, young sportswoman
and Helen Rollason award were
decided by a judging panel chaired
by Eleanor Oldroyd. The panel
featured the former winners JessEnnis-Hill, Kelly Holmes and Tanni
Grey-Thompson.
The other awards were
determined by a public vote.SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR
WINNERS
1988 Olive Jones (volunteering)
1989 Kim Thomas (rowing)
1990 Denise Smith (parasports)
1991 Sally Gunnell (athletics)
1992 Tanni Grey-Thompson
(parasports)
1993 Sally Gunnell (athletics)
1994 Denise Lewis (athletics)1995 Lynn Simpson (kayaking)
1996 Laura Davies (golf)
1997 Alison Nicholas (golf)
1998 Denise Lewis (athletics)
1999 Paula Radcliffe (athletics)
2000 Denise Lewis (athletics)
2001 Ellen MacArthur (sailing)
2002 Paula Radcliffe (athletics)
2003 Pippa Funnell (eventing)
2004 Kelly Holmes (athletics)
2005 Zara Phillips (eventing)
2006 No award
2007 Victoria Pendleton (cycling)
2008 Nicole Cooke (cycling)
2009 Chrissie Wellington (triathlon)2010 Maggie Alphonsi
(rugby union)
2011 Sarah Stevenson (taekwondo)
2012 Jessica Ennis-Hill (athletics)
2013 Christine Ohuruogu
(athletics)
2014 Charlotte Dujardin (show
jumping)
2015 Jessica Ennis-Hill (athletics)
2016 Laura Kenny (cycling)
2017 Elise Christie (speed skating)
2018 Dina Asher-Smith (athletics)
2019 Dina Asher-Smith (athletics)
2020 Hollie Doyle (horse racing)
2021 Emma Raducanu (tennis)ABOUT
THE
AWARDS
M
ind should always trump
matter. That’s what Rach-
ael Blackmore has accom-
plished over the past 12
months in the uncompro-
misingly brutal world of
jump racing. It’s a lesson
for a much wider context.
For at 9 stone wet through, some
20lbs lighter than almost all her
peers, this university educated
daughter of a farmer and a primary
school teacher raised in Tipperary
cuts a slight figure as she walks out to
the paddock, but in the saddle she is a
revelation.
This spring she won the Champion
Hurdle on Honeysuckle, en route to
becoming leading rider at this year’s
Cheltenham Festival and then she
topped the lot by winning the Grand
National on Minella Times. In July a
horrible fall at Killarney put her out
for three months but last week’s vic-
tory on A Plus Tard at Haydock has
shown that at 32 she is not just as good
as her rivals but better.
She is, of course, the first woman to
do this in a profession where there are
only two of her sex in the top 50 in
either Ireland or the UK, but that’s not
the point.
What Blackmore has done stresses
how important decision-making can
be in sport and by extension in life
itself. However hard you push, or loud
you shout, it counts for nothing if the
move is the wrong one.
In the spinning capsule of the jump
race the false step can sometimes
bring the instantly violent outcome of
the fall but much more frequent is the
tactical lapse that makes the differ-
ence between victory and defeat.
Blackmore’s secret is that she lapses
less often than the others.
In many ways her achievements are
even more remarkable than those of
Hollie Doyle, whose flat racing
exploits won her last year’s Sunday
Times Sportswoman Of The Year and
who has had more than 160 winners
this season. For while Doyle is still
proving herself in the absolute top
races and had just one ride in the clas-
sics, Blackmore is an established fix-
ture as well as feared rival.
Doyle has muscled up her tiny
frame to develop a uniquely forceful,
close-clamped, hand-bagging method
of making horses run. Blackmore
angles a longer body behind the maneBROUGH
SCOTT
and, sternly determined though the
likes of Minella Times and Honey-
suckle know her to be, she will always
rely on brain over brawn.
In hindsight it helped that racing
success took a long while to come —
Blackmore was 27 years old and into
her seventh season before she even
got into double figures.
She had been quietly gaining expe-
rience while completing her studies
and by the time she decided to turn
professional she had a clear idea of the
way she would have to play things.
When she then became the first
woman to be champion conditional
many of us were still not convinced.
How wrong we were.
The most important person to be
persuaded was Henry de Bromhead,
the trainer responsible not just for her
Champion Hurdle and Grand
National triumphs but of all 22 of her
rides in the past fortnight. Yet top
horses bring unpitying expecta-
tions, racing can forgive anything
but losers and a top jockey has to
continue to deliver.
“The cream,” the former Chel-
tenham and Aintree superstar
Barry Geraghty said on Thurs-
day, “will always come to the
top. What Rachael has is
finesse; she understands
horses better, keeps her cool,
makes the right decisions. She
is magic.”
But for all that, Blackmore will
know that the ground will always
come up to eat you if you go on too
long. She will be aware that when her
two inspirations, Katie Walsh and
Nina Carberry, retired on the same
day at Punchestown in 2018 they were
33, an age she herself will reach next
July. All the more reason to treasure
her while we can.‘What Rachael has
is finesse — she
understands horses
better. She is magic’
Rachael Blackmore proves brains
matter more than brawn in the saddle
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER BRADLEY ORMESHERp
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KEPT COMING
16 November 28, 2021The Sunday Times
Sportswomen of the Year
A discretionary award, determined
by the Sunday Times editor, Emma
Tucker, for an athlete who has
achieved something exceptional
but who would not fall within the
established categories. These are
only open to British sportswomen
and, as an Irish citizen, Blackmore
could not therefore be nominated.
However, her achievements at
Cheltenham and Aintree made her
the obvious candidate to receive
this inaugural editor’s award.INTRODUCING
THE EDITOR’S AWARD
Blackmore won the
Grand National and
is one of only two
female jockeys in
the top 50 in either
Ireland or the UK