jockeys | changing hands
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Opposite page: Bryony Frost and her father Jimmy Frost Below: Rachael Blackmore and Sir Anthony McCoy
rom Sir Anthony McCoy and Ruby Walsh to Harry Cobden and Bryony Frost, racing is blessed with sporting
legends and household names aplenty, who have all brought their passion and talents to the track. Alongside such strength and depth, The Festival ™ presented by Magners 2019 saw a changing of the guard as new names were thrown into the Winners’ Enclosure, highlighting a fresh era of racing talent. As Prestbury Park was catching its breath after one of the most emotional 45 minutes that Cheltenham had ever experienced on Day Three of The Festival, Noel Fehily was riding his last ever Festival winner. It had been touch and go whether he would actually ride at The Festival at all after having his appendix removed in January, and upon passing the finishing post, he immediately announced he was retiring after a career that spanned 21 years and included over 1,300 winners. “It’s a young person’s game, you can’t go on forever,” he admitted. This was evident again on May 1st 2019 when after riding Kemboy to victory in the Punchestown Gold Cup, Cheltenham legend and multiple Irish Champion Jockey, Ruby Walsh, arguably the finest rider that Jump racing has ever seen, called time on his glittering career. With a record 59 winners at The Festival, and taking home the leading Festival jockey award 11 times between 2004 and 2017, Ruby will be remembered for his alliance with some of the most gifted horses of a generation, including Kauto Star, Big Buck’s, Master Minded, Quevega, Hurricane Fly, Annie Power and Faugheen, to name but a few. These are big boots to fill and there is an abundance of riders ready to fill them. The explosion of noise that roared alongside Bryony Frost and Frodon in the 2019 Ryanair Chase will live long in the memory of every sports fan. It was Frost’s second Festival victory, after winning the St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase as an amateur in 2017 on Pacha Du Polder, and she entered the history books as the first Grade One Festival
winner over fences/hurdles for a female jockey. Affectionately known by her first name in the racing world, the public had found their new hero. Bryony or ‘B’ as she prefers to be known, is the daughter of Grand National winning jockey Jimmy Frost and has never considered a life doing anything but becoming a professional jockey. Often considered a flagbearer for female jockeys in British racing, Bryony is very quickly proving that she is a force to be reckoned with after claiming the Conditional Jockeys Championship in the 2018/19 season. As The Festival was celebrating the record-breaking success of Bryony, the next day Irish sensation, Rachael Blackmore, repeated the Grade One feat aboard Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, following up her victory on Day One in the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase on A Plus Tard. Her success hasn’t happened overnight and would have come as no surprise to the Irish horse racing community, who consider her a superstar for her achievements in the saddle. She made history as the first woman to win the Irish Conditional Riders Championship in 2017 and, with 90 winners, came runner-up in the 2018/19 Jockeys’ Championship behind Paul Townend. Rachael has built up a strong relationship with top Irish trainer Henry De Bromhead, as well as being high among the top jockeys used by Gigginstown House Stud for their battalion of horses. Unlike Bryony, Rachael was not born into the racing world. The middle one of three
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