Tony McCoy, in 1997, was the last jockey before Blackmore to win the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup at the same Cheltenham Festival, so it has been 25 years since we had to delve into the National Hunt history books to confirm if a rider has ever won the Grand National in the same season. Go back to the early days of the sport, when the Champion Hurdle itself was in its infancy, and you will find that the answer is one: Tommy Cullinan, in 1930, who completed the Aintree Jumping Jewelry Set in Shaun Goilin, a random walk after his initial base, the great hero of Easter, was injured. Ninety-two years later, and in a much more competitive era, Blackmore is nine and a half minutes away from completing a triple quickfire that has escaped the best National Hunt riders since. And if the Minella Times can repeat its winning performance 12 months ago – being only the fourth double winner since 1899 in the process – a full 70,000-seat auditorium will be at Aintree to give horses and riders the welcome they deserve. worth. It was an eerie and, frankly, somewhat defiant experience watching Blackmore’s historic success in front of empty stands 12 months ago. More than any other match, the Grand National is about the shared experience, for those on the field and the hundreds of millions watching around the world. Without the noise and delusional excitement that pervades as the 40 runners line up for the most intense 10 minutes of action in any sport, it could only be a pale imitation of an event that has captured the public imagination for most of 200 years. . Blackmore, of course, was very caught up in the moment, the one that every jockey has dreamed of since childhood, to allow the almost silence to rub the varnish from her day. But he left a faint sense of unfinished business that would go down in history with a win on Saturday. “It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to win it again until it really happens, to be honest,” Blackmore said this week. “My mom and sister are coming in on Saturday morning and they’re really looking forward to it, so it would be great to have them here and there are a lot of friends coming as well. Rachael Blackmore with the Gold Cup after winning the A Plus Tard last month. Photo: Tom Jenkins / The Guardian “You can not compare this feeling of crossing the line, it was just an amazing feeling and it is a race that every child wants to lead. When you grow up, this is the race that captures your imagination and is just too special to be able to to say that you won.I have definitely seen the replay of last year’s fight more times than I can count. “There is definitely a huge global reach and I really felt it after last year. The media attention after Cheltenham last year [where Blackmore was the first female rider to finish as the meeting’s top jockey] it was huge, but after the Grand National it seemed to explode again. “It seems to reach places in the world that no other race does.” Last month’s success at the Cheltenham Gold Cup meant that Blackmore is now the only current rider in the weigh-in room to have won all three major races and completed the set in just over a year. This tells the story of her career as a whole, the years she spent competing for a breakthrough before many Grade One winners arrived one after the other at a dizzying pace. Blackmore could lose for the first time on Saturday and remain a global sporting phenomenon. Quick guide
Greg Wood Saturday Tips
projection Aintree 1.45 Remastered 2.25 Good Risk At All (nb) 3.00 Edwardstone 3.35 Thyme Hill 4.15 Killer Kane 5.15 Longhouse Poet (nap) 6.20 Ernest Gray Newcastle 12.30 Bird On The Wire 1.00 Git Maker 1.37 Sir Apollo 2.15 Lough Salt 2.50 Byzantine Empire 3.25 The King Of May 4.00 Get With It 4.40 Kings Creek Thirsk 12.55 Paddy Brunty 1.30 Shallow Hal 2.05 True Mason 2.40 Symbolize 3.15 King Of Jungle 3.50 Juan De Montalban 4.30 Broadspear 5.00 Sfumato Bangor 1.55 Vintage Fizz 2.33 Ecume Atlantique 3.08 Daranova 3.43 Dawn Raider 4.22 Tigerbythetail 4.52 Spirit Of Regulus Wolverhampton 4.57 Pons Aelius 5.30 Voltaic 6.00 Lucia Joy 6.30 The Grand Visir 7.00 Pilot Wings 7.30 Odd Socks Havana 8.00 Study The Stars 8.30 The Resdev Way Thank you for your response. “When you walk into a casual clothing store in Dublin and you are dressed in normal clothes and someone comes up to you, that’s crazy,” he said. “It’s one thing that people approach you at races because you’re dressed like a jockey and people can put you down, but the weird moment you are in such a situation is something that did not happen 12 months ago. “I have a lot of fanmail from last year, both from girls and boys. I often know that the teacher at school assigns a writing assignment to someone you admire as I receive a set of letters, so it is obviously somewhere in the school curriculum. It’s wonderful and it’s wonderful that it stimulates the interest of the children and we hope that it helps them “. Grand National courseThe Grand National course at Aintree. As the National, of course, there are other stories to spark the players’s imagination, most notably the possibility of Snow Leopardess, a gorgeous gray running ahead, becoming the first mare to win the game after becoming a mother. Marietta Fox-Pitt, the 80-year-old owner and breeder, would be a thrilling post-race interview, repeating the injury story that threatened to end her horse’s career, the decision to send her to be covered by a Derby winner. The lifelong rider’s insistence that having children made no difference to her and thus should not make any difference to the Snow Leopard also recovered. Snow Leopardess would be impossible to lose at the top of the field. Choosing Blackmore’s green and yellow hat, which distinguishes her among JP McManus’ five runners, will be a bigger challenge, but millions will follow her every step of the way as she tries to make another piece of history. For Blackmore, the mission to this year’s Grand National is simple. Once again with people.
