a grand national heroine.

​She may have earned the privilege of consigning her gender to the bottom drawer of comment yet what Rachael Blackmore cannot censor is that in the history of our sport she has become its first Grand National heroine. The likes of Hayley Turner, Holly Doyle (the Holy Doyle as I cannot help but refer to her) and Bryony Frost may have cracked the glass ceiling preventing female jockeys assuming the high table of their profession but Rachael Blackmore in her unassuming manner has smashed a ruddy great hole in it.
No one can claim the glass ceiling is once and forever removed as we cannot know if her legacy is complemented by other female jockeys being given similar opportunities to those bestowed on Blackmore. The evidence suggests the tide is flowing in favour of emancipation, that the equality of the genders is a very real thing and not a supporting tributary or pretty lagoon but a great river of opportunity that the talented and dedicated female jockeys of the present and future can harvest and support. Owners and trainers, though, have their part to play in this opening-up of our glorious sport.
Whatever the future holds for the female jockey, there is one unassailable fact that Blackmore cannot deny; her gender may be irrelevant but she will always remain the sport of horse racing’s first and greatest female jockey and the achievements of every National Hunt jockey of her gender to follow in her footsteps will be compared favourably or unfavourably to Rachael Blackmore.
Winning jockeys of any creed are always complimented on their exploits in winning a race and I dare say every jockey who finished in the money on Saturday rode competent races to achieve the best possible placing. Yet Blackmore, on watching the replay, to my eyes, in a field of forty runners always had a pocket of space in which to place her horse in running and jumping, was always close to the pace whilst at the same time conserving energy and showed she had done her research by not asking Minella Times for his greatest effort until the jumping was over and the elbow was reached. 
For one brief moment, though perhaps it did not occur to Blackmore, it seemed possible she might once again have chosen the wrong horse, that Aidan Coleman and Balko des Flos were about to spoil the party, but no, Blackmore had the situation under control and though it will mean little or nothing to her, or to de Bromhead and J.P. McManus, my ambition to witness a non-male jockey win one of racing’s classic races was fulfilled. As sad as it may sound, I can die happy (ish) now.
Blackmore cannot die happy any time soon, of course. She has yet to climb horse racing’s highest peak, even if in the eye of the public she presently stands upon the sport’s highest summit. The only mistake of this glorious season for her was in choosing A Plus Tard over Minella Indo in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a glitch she’ll be eager to correct next March. And there is the not insignificant matter of the Irish jockeys’ championship in which she has been given a glimmer of opportunity with the injury to Paul Townsend, a situation that doubtless will be gilded by Willie Mullins using her services whenever she is not required by Henry de Bromhead, a man who seemingly cannot get a handle on why his cup continues to runneth over.
It is the jockeys championship that to my mind will be the greater achievement. In the Grand National, as supreme as the ride she gave Minella Time was, it counted nothing towards her total of wins in her homeland and was just one race on one day. To wrestle the title from Paul Townsend, and isn’t coincidence a strange factor of life, that one of her only pony race wins she beat Townend in a photo-finish, it is required of her to be his equal or better every single day there is National Hunt racing in Ireland. She is one cool cookie but she’ll be spraying champagne if after Punchestown she becomes the sport’s first female champion jockey of a country where the sport is truly celebrated.
The sport, though, as we are made aware of on an almost daily basis, is a leveller of spirit, conceit and cockiness. Yesterday Blackmore achieved sporting history; Tabatha Worsley, a really good jockey deserving of greater opportunities, completed the National course with Sub Lieutenant, albeit without troubling the commentators on too many occasions, but Bryony Frost ended up in hospital after being unseated by Yala Enki, though until that point she had got a good spin off him. As Rachael Blackmore needs no reminding, and this is what sets the jockey apart from his or her colleagues in other dangerous sports, the greatest of victories is not followed by days of rest and recuperation. Horse racing is a life, a sport of daily occurrence; the glory of winning horse racing’s most celebrated race will not cocoon her from possible injury on her next ride.
Her achievements are stacking-up. She is box office now. But she is no spring chicken. Male jockeys usually achieve their opportunities during their teenage years. This luxury was not afforded Blackmore. She came late to the sport; she has had to literarily scrap for scraps to claw her way through the ranks and we have Eddie O’Leary to thank for wrenching open an opportunity for her. As Henry de Bromhead is keen to emphasise, he never offered her the job of stable jockey; she seized it by riding winner after winner for him. I doubt even now if she has a retainer to ride for the stable. It might be something he should consider; J.P.McManus is yet to sign a replacement for Barry Geraghty and his team recognise talent when they see it.
The hour is golden for Blackmore but sadly for her, and us, the midnight hour is not far over the horizon for her. We must appreciate her diamond skills while we have the opportunity.