Honeysuckle, the Irish-trained mare on whom top Irish rider Rachael Blackmore yesterday (Tuesday) became the first female jockey to triumph in jump racing’s premier hurdle race at this year’s Cheltenham Festival, is a cause for celebration for breeding in Great Britain.
And the mare’s sensational performance in the Champion Hurdle was shortly followed by a top-flight success for another British-bred, Black Tears, in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, making it a day to remember as regards mares bred in Britain.
Honeysuckle is trained in Ireland by Henry De Bromhead, and this was an 11th straight win for the daughter of late Yorton Farm Stud stallion Sulamani, a seventh career G1 title and a second consecutive success at Cheltenham’s showpiece meeting. The 7-year-old was bred by Dr Geoffrey Guy and Doug and Lucy Procter, who are Guy’s co-owners and the managers of Glanvilles Stud in Dorset, England.
Welsh breeder Roland Crellin, in the past responsible for producing multiple G1 winner Cue Card, added another Cheltenham Festival win to his resume when Black Tears denied Concertista, a daughter of Newsells Park Stud sire Nathaniel, in the final G1 of the afternoon. The daughter of Jeremy is so far the only racing offspring out of G3-winning mare Our Girl Salley.
Both horses picked up £10,000 in additional prize money through the Great British Bonus scheme, the initiative led by the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association that rewards the connections of British-bred fillies and mares.
Doug Procter told Great British Racing International after the race, “It was the way she did it today. The way she jumped and pulled clear at the second last and then just kept on going, that’s quite a way to win a Champion Hurdle.
“She’s only the sixth mare to win the Champion Hurdle in its history. Admittedly three of those have been recently - Annie Power, Epatante and Honeysuckle - but you then have to go back to the mid-90s.
"This is special because it’s ‘the’ championship hurdle race. I always remember people saying of Desert Orchid, “he’s a marvellous horse, but he hasn’t won a Gold Cup”. But as soon as he ticked that box, it cemented him up there at the top.
“What else can you say about the mare? She’s never been beaten. 11 races on the trot, six Grade 1s on the trot and seven in total. She is just fantastic. I was clearly having a good day when I planned that mating!”
Procter was also full of praise for the development of the mares’ programme in Britain and the Great British Bonus scheme, as well as its predecessor, the National Hunt Mare Owners' Prize Scheme (NH MOPS):
“Particularly since the launch of the Great British Bonus and MOPS, [owning a mare] seems to have caught the imagination. There are some high-profile cases of mares winning multiple bonuses. It is a big encouragement.
“If you look at the programme mares have in France, 3- and 4-year-old mares usually only race against their own sex – apart from the very top ones – and that means that far more often they’re breeding from winning, tested mares. The whole purpose of having the mares programme is to help us select which mares to breed from in the future, and hopefully that will start filtering through. We’re seeing that ignoring mares was ridiculous, because they’re perfectly good racehorses.”