Rachael Blackmore is the most successful female rider ever to grace the Cheltenham Festival and a trailblazer for women in jumps racing.
The Queen of Cheltenham: Rachael Blackmore 5 Greatest Festival Winners
Blackmore has 16 winners at the biggest meeting in the sport, including being crowned leading rider at the Cheltenham Festival in 2021 after a stunning six winners – just a month before she made world headlines by winning the Grand National at Aintree. Here we recall the top five Cheltenham Festival wins from the ‘Queen of the Cotswolds’.
Rachael Blackmore Festival Winners: Captain Guinness (2024)
The Championship races at the Festival are held in the highest regard and getting a win in any of them is a career target for any jumps jockey. Blackmore is now three quarters of the way to having them all on her CV after Captain Guinness won an attritional renewal of the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2024.
The favourite El Fabiolo was pulled up early on, leaving Captain Guinness and Gentleman De Mee to scrap it out and it was Blackmore’s partner who scored for her boss Henry De Bromhead.
Rachael Blackmore Festival Winners: A Plus Tard (2019)
Achieving a first-ever Cheltenham Festival winner is special for any rider and Blackmore picked up hers in real style as she turned a competitive renewal of the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase into a one-horse race. The Cheveley Park Stud star soared clear and won by 16 lengths as Blackmore was able to come up the Cheltenham hill in splendid isolation for her maiden win.
Rachael Blackmore Festival Winners: Honeysuckle (2022)
A case of two for the price of one as it’s hard not to couple the Champion Hurdle wins of Honeysuckle. To date, she is the only mare to win successive renewals of the two-mile showpiece, but her first success came behind closed door in ’21, so it was a real celebratory triumph a year later for horse and rider as they savoured the adulation of the Cheltenham grandstands in retaining the title.
Rachael Blackmore Festival Winners: A Plus Tard (2022)
Blackmore was leading rider in 2021, but the single blemish that week was finishing second on A Plus Tard in the Gold Cup as De Bromhead’s Minella Indo grabbed the biggest prize of all under Jack Kennedy, who was called up after Blackmore chose to ride the former.
A year later, having partnered both horses through the 2020/21 season, she stuck with A Plus Tard and this time it was the dream outcome. Blackmore was widely praised for a patient ride, holding off her challenge until after they jumped the final fence before motoring home for a decisive success.
Rachael Blackmore Festival Winners: Honeysuckle (2023)
It’s doubtful any horse has meant more to Blackmore than Honeysuckle as they racked up a sequence of 16 straight wins together, including those two Champion Hurdles. By 2023, Honeysuckle was nearing the end of her career and, when she was beaten by State Man in the Irish Champion Hurdle, the prospect of facing that rival and Constitution Hill at Cheltenham was unappealing.
Owner Kenny Alexander opted for the Mares’ Hurdle instead, a race ‘Honey’ had won in 2020, and he was rewarded in style as his pride and joy bypassed Love Envoi up the Cheltenham hill to sign off with a 4-4 winning record at this great meeting. The emotional scenes in the winners’ enclosure were fuelled by the tragic loss of De Bromhead’s teenage son, Jack, in a pony racing accident six months earlier and ensured that Honeysuckle’s farewell ranks as Blackmore’s finest moment in the Cotswolds.
By Rob Eddy
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