Rachael Blackmore will, of course, always be best remembered as the first female jockey to win the Grand National, which she did in the famous green and gold colours of John P. McManus, aboard Minella Times, trained by Henry De Bromhead, on April 10, 2021. However, while the Oscar gelding may have given her what she later described as ‘the best day in racing I’ve had’, winning the world famous steeplechase was just the latest in a series of notable achievements for the Killenaule native. Indeed, just weeks earlier she had won the Champion Hurdle, on Honeysuckle, also trained by De Bromhead, and the Ruby Walsh Trophy, awarded to the leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival, making her the first of her sex to do either.
Blackmore rode her first winner under Rules, Stowaway Pearl, in a lady riders’ handicap at Thurles on February 10, 2011, but turned professional in 2015 and, in 2016/17, became the first female jockey to win the conditional jockeys’ title in her native Ireland. On home soil, she enjoyed here most successful season in 2021/22, when she rode 92 winners and amassed €1,937,170 in prize money. Thus far, she has a total of 32 Grade 1 wins to her name, the most recent of which was the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival on Captain Guinness, also trained by De Bromhead, on March 13, 2024.
