Kevin Blake: Welcome to the Betfair team Rachael Blackmore

• Kevin Blake pays tribute to Betfair's new ambassador

• The story of an athlete with an iron mentality

• A great ambassador for the sport by just being herself

Rachael needs no introduction at this stage having transcended the sport of horse racing into the mainstream consciousness in a manner that very few jockeys ever do.

She has burst through the glass ceiling for achievements considered possible by female National Hunt jockeys and is unlikely to have finished her already extensive re-writing of the record books.

Indeed, she has put together a CV of achievements that only a very select group of jockeys of any gender can claim to better.

Career-changing six weeks

There are so many successes and highlights that one recalls when thinking of Rachael Blackmore, but when the story of her riding career is complete, it would be a major surprise if a six-week period in March and April of 2021 doesn't take centre stage.

Coming into the Cheltenham Festival of 2021, it felt like British and Irish horse racing was on the ropes. The industry and the people within it had taken an absolute battering for a full year.

An unprecedented shutdown of almost three months due to Covid-19, mass disruption of the sales calendar and point-to-point scene, mainstream scrutiny of drug testing and integrity, the Charles Byrnes case, the Gordon Elliott scandal.

The atmosphere around horse racing was so toxic that it felt inevitable that any negativity on the highest profile of stages that is the Cheltenham Festival would be a hammer blow for the industry.

Horse racing badly needed a hero to step up to the plate and produce some magic.

When it was needed most, it was Rachael Blackmore that quietly put on her cape and duly did just that.

By that stage it had become the norm for Rachael Blackmore to hit the mark at the highest level in National Hunt racing, but what she did that week was reminiscent of Ruby Walsh at the peak of his powers.

She tactically bossed and controlled championship races all week as well as showing tremendous patience and finesse when required. By the conclusion of the meeting, she had ridden a remarkable six winners including the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle and the Ryanair Chase on Allaho.

She stepped up as the star of the meeting and put horse racing back on the front pages for all the right reasons.

Rachel Blackmore Highlights from Betfair on Vimeo.

As incredible as that week was, better still was to come at Aintree the following month.

The Grand National is the horse race that breaks through into the public consciousness more so than any other. Many female jockeys had tried to ride the winner of it over the decades and a few had hit the frame, but the quest for first female winning rider was still on.

Step forward Rachael Blackmore on Minella Times.

With a huge strength of public support behind her, they created history together on the most memorable of days at Aintree. Once again, Rachael had delivered a dream result for the sport.

To cap the most incredible of years, Rachael was subsequently voted RTÉ Sportsperson of the Year and the BBC Worlds Sports Star of the Year.

Worked her way to the very top despite slow start to riding career

Since then, the winners have continued to flow at the highest level, but the sweetest win of all must have been her victory on A Plus Tard in the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in 2022.

The only low note of her epic Cheltenham Festival in 2021 had been finishing second in the Gold Cup and to right that reversal the following year clearly meant an awful lot to her.

To finish on a broader note, it is worth reiterating that not only has Rachael worked her way into a position at the very top of the tree of National Hunt jockeys that few thought a female rider could ever climb to, she did it without the benefit of a racing family to give her a start.

This often-overlooked background meant that she had to start from the very bottom and scrap for every opportunity. After riding in point-to-points and on the track as an amateur for over five years, she had just seven winners under rules and 11 point-to-point winners to her name.

How many others, female or male, would have given up on their dream at that point or even long before then?

Thus, this isn't just a story of the rise of a great talent, this is a story of an athlete with an absolutely iron mentality and perseverance to rival any of her weighing room colleagues past or present.

A truly brilliant ambassador by just being herself

For quite some time now, Rachael Blackmore has been thrust forward as an ambassador for horse racing and for women in sport. One gets the strong impression that she isn't particularly keen on either role.

Like any fiercely-driven professional athlete, her focus is on the job at hand of being the best jockey she can be.

However, it is often said that the best politicians are the ones that don't want to be politicians. Similarly, even if Rachael might not relish the role, she has been one hell of an ambassador for horse racing and women in sport. And all she has done, and will continue to do, is be herself.

Welcome to the team, Rachael.