Blackmore: Retirement crept into my head at Cheltenham

Rachael Blackmore first had thoughts of retiring at the Cheltenham Festival in March.

The trailblazing jockey, a Grand National, Cheltenham Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle-winning rider among a host of other historic firsts, bowed out from the sport this month.

“When I was leaving the weighing room at Cheltenham on Friday this year, for the first time I just had a little thought in my head: ‘Will I be back here next season?’,” she told Betfair.

“It was the first time that thought had ever crept into my head. I didn’t know.

“Part of me thought I would be back, part of me thought I wouldn’t .

“I just said to myself leave it until June and get to the jockeys’ break. I’d think about it all then.”

A winner at Cork aboard Ma Belle Etoile in early May confirmed the decision, and the next day Blackmore was set on hanging up her boots.

“I was going to Cork the other day and I thought: ‘If this one wins then maybe that’s the time to call it’,” she said.

“She won and, the following morning, I fully decided that was it.”

Blackmore does not have an immediate plan for the next step in her career, and will adapt to a different lifestyle before considering what to turn her hand to.

“Even though retiring was probably a feeling inside me that I had kind of dampened down, it wasn’t part of a massive plan to retire that Saturday, there is nothing set up but I am very lucky that I can take a few weeks and decide what might be next,” she said.

“It will be a very different life to the one I had previously.”