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RACHAEL BLACKMORE CELEBRATED victory in the Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham today with Bob Olinger, defeating favourite Teahupoo.
The result completed a double for Blackmore and trainer Henry De Bromhead after an inspired finish in the opening race of the day aboard Air Of Entitlement helped Blackmore secure her first win at the 2025 Festival.
Bob Olinger maintained his flawless Cheltenham record when storming up the hill to take the main race on the third day of the festival. Bob Olinger won the 2021 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle and capitalised on the fall of Galopin Des Champs in the following year’s Turners Novices’ Chase.
The outcome sees Blackmore complete a brilliant set of Cheltenham wins after previously triumphing in the marquee Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase, Ryanair Chase, and Gold Cup races.
Henry de Bromhead’s 10-year-old was seemingly the second string for owners Robcour, with their reigning champion Teahupoo the 7-4 favourite for Gordon Elliott.
It was those two horses involved in the finish as Jack Kennedy rode the latter, but after they locked horns jumping the last, it was Bob Olinger who came out on top by a length and threequarters to triumph at 8-1.
Blackmore said: “We were very hopeful coming here, but for him to do it is fantastic.
“He’s a phenomenal horse and he’s unbeaten here. I know one day it was a fortuitous win after Galopin Des Champs fell at the last, but you need that bit of luck and today is a great day.
“He was a great ride everywhere today. He’s got speed and was able to use it at the end.
“When you’re riding for Henry, it’s a great help.
“It’s an incredible place, it’s where every jockey wants to be and I’ve been very lucky here. Any time you go up onto that podium, it’s very special.”
De Bromhead said: “It’s unbelievable, a super ride from Rachael and great work from all the team at home. To get him back like that is incredible and I’m delighted for everyone.
“Davy Roche, my assistant, he’d take a bullet for him – he adores him. He said he worked well the other day and he’ll be ecstatic.
“He’s just a class horse and he was unbeaten here. I was at a preview event a few weeks ago and I wasn’t looking at the betting, but he was 66-1 and I was thinking ‘oh my God’, I couldn’t believe it.
“He’s a bit of a poser and a dude who loves the attention and deserves every bit he gets. He comes alive here and obviously loves it here.
“We had a couple of funny years with him, but he’s back now. You always hope they’ll come back and win another big one, but I never foresee anything winning anything!
“You live the dream and you hope and try to maintain them as well as you can. It’s so hard to get a good horse, so when you get a good one, you want to try and maintain them for as long as you can and I really feel we try to do that.
“It’s brilliant for Rachael. She’s just so good and is such a professional who works so hard. When she came back from injury our horses hit a bad patch of form, but she just does what she does – she’s class.”
Owner Brian Acheson added: “To see Bob coming up the hill like that when I didn’t think he would stay well, it was a dream.
“We ran him at Navan and then decided to wait for Rachael, who gets on so well with him.
“He came out of the clouds today and I said here comes the dude, because that’s what he is – a dude.”
Prior to the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, Blackmore and de Bromhead had so far drawn a blank at this year’s showpiece meeting, with the Robcour-owned six-year-old Air Of Entitlement sent off a 16-1 chance to change matters.
There was early drama and after a false start, Maughreen – one of Willie Mullins’ fancied runners – whipped round and was left by the pack at the second attempt to get the race underway.
It was left to outsider Brendas Asking to lead the field along from Ben Pauling’s Diva Luna, with Gavin Cromwell’s 85-40 favourite Sixandahalf always close by and tracking the pace.
Keith Donoghue looked to be sitting pretty aboard Sixandahalf as the runners turned to face the Cheltenham hill and although beating off the challenge of Diva Luna after the final flight, Blackmore was conjuring every ounce of effort from her mount as the line approached, delivering Air Of Entitlement in a power-packed drive to edge a half-length victory over the market leader.
Diva Luna held off Mullins’ Karoline Banbou for third, a further six lengths adrift.
De Bromhead said: “We knew we had the stamina and obviously the New course suits. We always worry about being too handy in this race and Rachael got it spot-on. I thought they went a really good gallop and she gave her some spin.
“She stayed on really well. I thought when we winged the last we had a chance and I knew Keith (Donoghue, riding Sixandahalf) was up there the whole way, which historically hasn’t worked.
“It’s a long way up that straight, I thought we had a chance after jumping the last and I’m delighted.”
Air Of Entitlement was having just her second start and De Bromhead added: “It’s funny but I always say I much prefer coming here fresh and happy than feeling like I need to give them runs for experience.
“She was in Colin Bowe’s as a point-to-pointer, so she’ll have jumped more fences than most of the fillies in that field. It’s always a concern, but I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t concerned about something!”
Blackmore, riding her 17th Festival winner, said: “It’s an incredible feeling. I read an interview recently with JP McManus when he said some people are born luckier than others and I definitely feel like I was born luckier for going round here anyway.
“I’ve been so lucky with the horses I’ve got to ride and this mare is another one. Henry brings his horses over here in such incredible form and she was just phenomenal there. She travelled through the race and jumped well and got her head in front at the right time.”
On having to wait until day three of the Festival for a winner, Blackmore said: “You can’t lose faith, we’re only halfway through the week. We’ve been a bit spoilt in the last few years as every Tuesday I’ve walked home with a winner under our belt. It wasn’t the case this year but I’m so grateful to get one today.
“I missed three months before Christmas and Cheltenham is the main thing to be back for. It was so difficult to watch all these horses you should have been riding, but I’m grateful the injury didn’t happen the other side of Christmas because this is the most important place to be for all us jockeys.”
Written by Press Association and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
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Who makes this kinda stuff up? I really don’t understand the mentality of the type of people who would go out of their way to play on people’s fears with a view to stealing from them (information, bank details, whatever).
@lambda sensor: I agree, but if it is a text message it should have a source number so the telephone operators should be able to pass on the information to the gardai. I assume it is an offence to impersonate a government or state (or any) organisation.
Jail without access to the internet for the duration to these scam individuals. If coming from abroad then block the foriegn operators numbers from all texts and calls to Ireland
The telecom operators can be very quick to protect themselves but are lacking in protecting it’s customs. Bet they could stop all texts with the link in it and other scams but for some reason they seem slow to act. Yet social media platforms can stop the spread and remove stuff if needed.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: There are many SIM card providers out there now so it would be very difficult to track things back to the source. With GSM cards being so cheap and easy to use plus the availability of GSM application SIM cards it is a very simple thing to setup a PC controlled system which will spit out messages all day. Those messages are not even sent from a standard off the shelf phone.
@David Corrigan:
If it is a foreign network, block the whole network and tell them to figure it out…
@David Corrigan: I have no doubt that they are almost certainly run from a device and not single composed messages in most cases and might be hard to trace back – ISP logs could help. But even if the guys could not be stopped the mobile operators could stop messages based upon content unless they have now encrypted plain text messages. We can then go to the ISP to block access to that link. Or do what they did in the USA, do a DNS redirected.
When telecom sites were replicated and phishing sites created to mimic them these sites were blocked or unhosted within 30 minutes – so it is possible to block access and prevent too much harm being done.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: it can be configured in a way that you only see the name of the sender (the name they give themselves) like when you get a text message from your bank with a one time password to login. The sender in turn can be located abroad.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: the whole world is seeing cyber theft and scams it is not unique to telcos that you allege ( wrongly ) that are sitting back and not taking action – there is an enormous amount of money and effort and resources spent by operators to try shut down scams – unfortunately once the the internet has been opened to all the smartfones then these challenges get more and more difficult – it is not as straight forward as blocking a call ( I work in this field )
Surely the network operators can block this fake information from circulating .
@Eug J Cummins: Would be next to impossible to do this.
@David Corrigan: block mass commercial texts that use the term HSE that are not from an authorised sender
@Eug J Cummins: They can (and used to many years ago) but wont now.
It would actually be straightforward, but would block advertising companies. These are sent by international SMS relays, and it would take 5 seconds to turn on a block if no number or name present.
Ah any close contact of a positive case would know this is fake . 24 days not one call from HSE. Luckily I contacted my contacts myself . Everybody in same circumstances should do it . If you know you’ve been exposed , contact the people you were with and tell them to quarantine and call their GP. Same if you’re a positive case . Otherwise it’s “ waiting for Godot”.
Those f@#£ers should be shot with balls of there own s#%T
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