blackmore, shergar cup & she's perfect.

​Yes, I am wrong more often than I am right. Which, I suggest, outside of Willie Mulllins and Ryan Moore, is just about average for the whole of the human race. Yet there is something far worse than merely getting your facts wrong – being right when you wish you were wrong.
I predicted a few weeks back that Rachael Blackmore would retire from riding at the end of the Irish season. And that is exactly what she announced yesterday. Little pony-riding girls all over Ireland will be heartbroken this morning.
The void she will leave behind her is unquantifiable. She is Rachael. She is the gleaming star of Irish racing. The face of Irish racing. Paul Townend may outrank her when it comes to championships and Grade 1’s but he was never first on peoples’ lips when asked to name a jockey. And that applies equally to Britain as it does to Ireland.
The sadness is that we shall probably never see her like again.
Oddly, and perhaps this needs explanation, she announced her retirement ‘with immediate effect’, even though she is jocked-up for two-rides at Sligo today. Knowing her from afar, which is perhaps to not know her at all, I suggest she planned her retirement in the way she has done to mitigate any hullabaloo, to go on her way in the same manner in which she arrived. Quietly.
As someone who has championed female jockeys since the days when the gentler sex was few and far between, the bad news keeps on coming. Hayley Turner’s retirement removed the smiley face from British flat racing. In losing Bryony Frost to France was as big a loss to British racing as Rachael’s will be to Irish racing. Emma Smith-Chaston has also recently retired from riding. And as I have said so many times recently, there is no one coming through the ranks to take their place. Yes, Hollie and Saffie are top ten on the flat but the divide between them and the rest of the girls is huge. Apart from Jo Mason being stable jockey to her uncle and grandfather, name another female who holds a stable jockey position?
Now, even if Hollie Doyle agrees with the decision, the Shergar Cup organisers have taken the retrograde step of doing away with an all-female team and this year each team will have one female member. Hollie may be right in believing it is a step forward to treat male and female jockeys the same, and in every other aspect of flat racing that is perhaps the right way forward, even if I believe young female jockeys need an edge in order to persuade owners and trainers to give them opportunities they presently lack. But the Shergar Cup is all about taking sides and I very much doubt I am alone in always supporting the all-female team, even if they are not the underdogs they once were.

Having now watched the finish of the French 1,000 Guineas from all angles, I believe the She’s Perfect team have an each-way chance of getting the result reversed in their favour. From the rear-view camera it is clear beyond doubt that Ryan Moore on Exactly bumped the Mikhail Barzelona horse, which caused him to veer from a straight line and the coming together between She’s Perfect and Exactly was minor, no more than a slight brush. Also, though the French whip rules allow a jockey to hit a horse with his hand as many times as the jockey sees fit, Barzelona hit his mount twice with his whip and twelve-times with his hand after losing his whip.
I am convinced She’s Perfect was unlucky to lose the race in the stewards’ room. I am inclined, though, to expect the result to stay the same. In this country, connections would be odds-on to get the race back. In fact, in this country she would not have lost it in the first place. I simply cannot see the French appeals panel over-ruling in favour of a British-trained horse.

NB. (Note Bene) The name of the female jockey considered by John Randall to be the most successful female in the history of racing is Julie Krone, with a total in the 3,000’s. How many of those victories were Grade 1’s or classics John Randall did not disclose. Of course, I should undertake the research myself. Perhaps. Maybe.