THERE’S really not much more to say about Rachael Blackmore’s excellence in the saddle nor any need to say she is the number one jockey currently riding.

But if you were to go back 20 years, to all those [mostly men?] who might never have accepted that a female rider, could or would be as good as the men, sit them down and serve them last Sunday at Fairyhouse.

To put it in context, first repeat Jane Mangan’s comments on RTÉ Racing.

“This girl got a fall in July where she broke her hip and her ankle, how many sports people would be back in September. The moment she hit the ground in Killarney, she was thinking, will I be back for Honeysuckle in the Hatton’s Grace. She came back a month early. She’s been so consistent at the highest level for so long. She handles the pressure, takes it all in her stride.

“There have been great people from this country do great things in sport, but Rachael Blackmore is one of the best of them.”

There might have been pressure from the off on Sunday and it was not a sportsperson’s typical preparation for a big occasion to be dumped off Midnight Run in a novice chase. I was out on the track. There was no bounce in that going.

Two of the key elements needed by the best jockeys, and perhaps where female riders might have come up short before, are to absorb all the pressure that goes with riding a high-profile horse and then to be competitive enough to hold your ground and come through in the cut and thrust of a big-field handicap.

Honeysuckle comes with an ever-expanding band of pressure. The crowd lined up three-deep along the walkway to see her out to the track and it was six or seven-deep as she returned.

But perhaps it was the following handicap hurdle that cements Blackmore at the top of the game – six in line at the last. No quarter given, no soft touches. Gua Du Large was only coming through, then he had his mind made up for him, into the lead and driven out to maximum effect. All in a day’s wonderful work.