Rachael Blackmore takes top honour at Horse Racing Ireland Awards
Rachael Blackmore celebrates winning the Hatton's Grace Hurdle onboard Honeysuckle at Fairyhouse last month. Picture: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo
The Irish Racing Hero Award, the top accolade at the 19th Annual Horse Racing Ireland Awards, has been bestowed upon Rachael Blackmore, it was revealed on Wednesday night.
The leading National Hunt jockey has made relentless progress through the ranks in recent years, and earlier this year all that hard work and talent culminated in the kind of month which few top sportspeople could dream of having.
Winner of the Champion Hurdle aboard Honeysuckle in a Cheltenham Festival which saw her crowned leading rider at the meeting, she followed up with a most memorable success aboard Minella Times in the Aintree Grand National.
Her association with Henry de Bromhead has been one of the great success stories of recent years, and the trainer was also recognised for his history-making season with the National Hunt Award.
The Knockeen, Co Waterford, trainer became the first person to saddle the winners of the Champion Hurdle (Honeysuckle), Champion Chase (Put The Kettle On), and Gold Cup (Minella Indo) at the same Cheltenham Festival and, to crown his season, he and Blackmore teamed up for that Grand National success.
Creating a little more history, he also became the first trainer since 1908 to saddle the first two in the National, as Balko Des Flos chased home stablemate Minella Times.
The Kenny Alexander-owned Honeysuckle, who was so superior to her rivals in the two-mile division, highlighted by her successes in the Irish and English Champion Hurdles, was the unsurprising winner of the Horse of the Year award.
Darragh O’Keeffe earned the Ride of the Year Award for his win aboard subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up A Plus Tard in the Savills Chase at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival. It was O’Keeffe’s first ride in a Grade One, and what a way it was to mark the occasion.
John Nallen’s Minella prefix has enjoyed great success over the years but all of that was trumped by what two of his graduates, Minella Indo and Minella Times, achieved in a short time last spring, winning the two biggest races on the National Hunt calendar year.
Both began life with Nallen. Minella Indo won a point to point on his only start between the flags – almost three years to the day before his Gold Cup success – while National winner Minella Times would likely have done the same but for tipping up at the last. To mark such a great achievement, Nallen received the Point To Point Award.
The only National Hunt award with no link to De Bromhead was the Achievement Award which went to Paul Hennessy. The Gowran trainer, better known for his achievements in the world of greyhound racing, showed his talent in the equine sphere with his expert handling of Heaven Help Us, who followed up a win at the Dublin Racing Festival by running away with the Coral Cup at the Cheltenham Festival, ridden on both occasions by Richie Condon.
The Flat brigade may feel a little overshadowed by their National Hunt counterparts this past 12 months but there were numerous notable achievements, not least by Colin Keane who, in earning a third jockeys’ championship, broke the record for the number of winners in one season. A final-day double at Naas brought that tally to 141, 15 more than recorded by Joseph O’Brien eight years earlier.
Trainer Ado McGuinness was the recipient of the Flat Achievement Award after making his Group 1 breakthrough when A Case Of You got up in the final strides to take the Prix de l’Abbaye at ParisLongchamp on ‘Arc weekend’.
Young rider Dylan Browne McMonagle was given the Emerging Talent Award. Crowned champion apprentice with 48 winners, half of which were for Joseph O’Brien, the Donegal native also tasted Group-race success for the first time, doing so aboard Baron Samedi in the Group 3 Vintage Crop Stakes in April.
A much-deserved Contribution to the Industry Award was given to Dr Jennifer Pugh at the recent Fairyhouse Winter Racing Festival. In her role as senior medical officer at the IHRB, she has been truly tested by the unprecedented challenges of the Covid Pandemic but she has been instrumental in everything which has ensured racing could continue smoothly and safely for all participants.
AWARD WINNERS
Contribution to the Industry Award: Dr Jennifer Pugh
Irish Racing Hero Award: Rachael Blackmore
Horse of the Year Award: Honeysuckle
Emerging Talent Award: Dylan Browne McMonagle
National Hunt Award: Henry de Bromhead
National Hunt Achievement Award: Paul Hennessy
Point-to-Point Award: John Nallen
Flat Award: Colin Keane
Flat Achievement Award: Ado McGuinness
Ride of the Year: Darragh O'Keeffe
