62 Wednesday December 22 2021 | the timesSportRacing
Blackmore,
pictured at Naas
last week, left,
knew she was in
for a good run on
Minella Times
after three
fences, going on
to win the Grand
National by more
than six lengthsgetting tired, he was still going
forward for me,” she says.
“One side of my brain was thinking,
‘You are going to win the Grand
National.’ The other was, ‘No,
someone’s going to come and flash
past you.’ Then, when I could hear the
commentator say I was four lengths
in front, a part of me was gettingthat “I was beside him and Minella
Times seemed to grab on to the bridle
again”.
They jumped the last with a
marginal lead. “He jumped that well
and I had conflicting thoughts in my
brain then: you have just jumped the
last fence in the Grand National in
front, he didn’t seem like he wasIrish jockeys Katie Walsh and Nina
Carberry, yet she does not tell her
story as a triumph over adversity.
“Once you break down that initial
barrier then you are fine,” she says.
On the day of the Grand National,
April 10, she thought that her horse,
Minella Times, would take well to the
fences “but,” she says, “you don’t
know till you ride them”. It was after
two or three fences that she “got the
feeling that he was going to be a great
spin”.
The race was dominated by Jett,
ridden out in front by Sam Waley-
Cohen. It was with two fences to
jump, she says, when Jett was fading,“
I understand that in the
media [being the first]
is a massive deal but it
never entered my head
N
ow that we are at the
point of the year when we
are looking back, this is
what Rachael Blackmore
sees. She sees the
weighing room at Aintree, with only
Irish jockeys in there, because it was
Covid and the Irish were bubbled
apart. The 32-year-old recalls hoping
that someone from that weighing
room would come home the winner
in the Grand National that day. And
she recalls how different that one race
feels, how everyone was wishing each
other good luck, far more than
normal.
She also recalls the evening before
when she walked the track with Brian
Hayes, her boyfriend, and Patrick
Mullins. The three jockeys share a
house together in Co Carlow and as a
trio they, too, were saying: we hope
it’s one of us. Then they agreed a bet:
if one of us wins, they pay for the
other two for a trip to Las Vegas.
Then she laughs. She still isn’t
actually sure if that trip involves her
too. “We didn’t go through terms and
conditions,” she says. “All I know is
that whenever they want to go, I’ll be
getting the bill.”
She has a close recall of the whole
race, but the bit that really sings is
when she tells you she is doing what
she loves. “Sometimes I wish I had a
better vocabulary to describe to
people what I do,” she says. “Basically
I just love riding horses, I love
jumping horses, but I love winning as
well and racing has all those things in
one and crossing the line in the
Aintree Grand National was an
incredible feeling. I was flooded with
such elation and joy.”
Here is the point that is particularly
significant. “When I crossed the line
in the Grand National my first feeling
was just joy that I had won it,” she
says. “It was not that I was the first
female to have won it.”2021
my sporting
year to savour‘The joy was
winning the
National, not
doing it as a
female rider’
Rachael Blackmore
tells Owen Slot that she
does not like to
be thought of as
a trailblazer after
Aintree win
Yet that is now who she is. She is a
history-maker, a pathfinder, a ceiling-
breaker. In becoming the first woman
to win the Grand National, she has
been described as all of those things
and is not exactly comfortable with it
because she never set out to be the
first woman to do this or that. And
her 2021 wasn’t just that. In March,
she was the first female to be top
jockey at Cheltenham; that, the Grand
National, was a month later.
Anyone in the game can tell you
that there is an element of lottery to
the Grand National. You need fortune
saddled up with you. Blackmore does
not lack for humility and she stresses
this point herself. She recalls that
moment in the race when they were
crossing the Melling Road, looking
over and seeing Mullins on Burrows
Saint “and I thought there that he was
travelling really well, that he could
win it”. It wasn’t until the penultimate
fence that she allowed herself to
think: it could be me.
It would be cute to think that she
had spent her whole life thinking: it
could be me. With a victory like this,
the narrative would also work neatly
if her post-race reflections were that
she had always wanted to strike this
resounding note for gender equality.
The reality is very different. She grew
up a farmer’s daughter. “Being a
professional jockey was never
something that was a thought,” she
says. Blackmore was interested in
becoming a vet, but as she explains,
with charming clarity: “I didn’t
become a vet because I had about as
much chance of becoming a vet as
probably you did a ballerina.”
She studied science at University
College Dublin, but “kept failing the
maths”, moved to the University of
Limerick, switched to equine science
and “scraped through that”. Through
all that time she was riding as an
amateur, but racing, she says, “wasn’t
going to be a viable career option”.
At 25, when she finished college,
she was at a crossroads. “I had to get
a real job,” she says, so she assumed
her riding days were over. To her
surprise, John “Shark” Hanlon, the
trainer, then said that he would have
enough opportunity for her to turn
professional.
“Right place, right time,” she says.
In other words, the way she tells it,
fortune smiled on her though, if it is
not already clear, she is the last
person to say that she was brimming
with talent and banging on the door.
Yes, she says, “initially” it is harder for
female jockeys to get rides and open
doors and she was grateful for the
friendship and advice of her fellowCAROLINE NORRIS