fter an extraordinary week at Cheltenham last month, when she finished the four days as the leading rider for the first time, there is something very unusual about Rachael Blackmore and it has nothing to do with her gender. It goes beyond the distinction between jumping and Flat racing too. Ahead of her ride on Minella Times in the Grand National at Aintree on Saturday, there is no longer much doubt that Blackmore is a jockey whose name can move betting markets. There was money for Minella Times a fortnight ago, well before Blackmore was confirmed as his rider, as backers attempted to “frontrun” the tidal wave of cash that is expected to arrive on Saturday. Little of it will be punted after a forensic examination of the form (though Minella Times has as much chance as most on paper). Most will be staked simply because Blackmore is in the saddle. It is an exclusive club, one for which the great British public plays the role of the bouncer on the door, making up the rules on who gets inside as they go along. Once, the question in Derby week was always: “What’s Lester riding?” Now, at Epsom and Royal Ascot, Frankie Dettori is the jockey who can send the bookmakers running for cover by blocking multiple bets. And in a little less than a month, Blackmore seems to have been installed in the same role over jumps, vacant since Ruby Walsh’s retirement in April 2019. Victory on Minella Times on Saturday would surely confer lifetime membership. Blackmore grew up with what she calls an “equine” background, rather than one steeped exclusively in racing, but you do not need to be the son or daughter of a trainer to know that the Grand National is the one race that sends everyone to the betting shops (or, for one year only, the online equivalent). “My first memory of racing is watching the Grand National,” she said on Friday. “Some friends of mine, it was at their house, I remember they did a sweepstake and watching it. I can’t remember who won or who was riding it but I can remember the buzz that was in the house that day when that race was on. “The Grand National captures everyone’s imagination and I think any kid on a pony, out hunting or jumping anything that resembles a bit of a hedge, you’re thinking about the Grand National.” Trainer Henry de Bromhead, Blackmore’s major employer, has three runners in Saturday’s race, and her only significant setback at Cheltenham last month was picking the wrong option from the trainer’s two runners in the Gold Cup. The question did not really arise in the National, however, as Minella Times has a very promising profile for the season’s toughest contest. “He’ll jump and he’ll travel,” she says. “I’m really looking forward to riding him. He’s had two very nice runs in handicaps at home, he seems very well and his jumping technique is good. It’s the Grand National and anything can happen, but I wouldn’t swap him, anyway. “Henry put up some Aintree-style fences at home and he seemed to take to them very well. You’d just be really looking forward to riding something like him.” The biggest obstacle in the way of Blackmore and Minella Times on Saturday – with the exception of the Chair, where she took a heavy fall on her first Grand National ride three years ago – is Jonjo O’Neill’s Cloth Cap, the only British-trained runner among the first four names in the betting. As such, he could be the last great hope for British jumping after a spring which has seen the cream of the country’s National Hunt horses routed at Cheltenham and, to a lesser but still unignorable extent, over the first two days at Aintree as well. Other potential headliners in Liverpool on Saturday include Bryony Frost and Tabitha Worsley, who along with Blackmore will aim to become the first female jockey to win the Grand National, aboard Yala Enki and Sub Lieutenant respectively. Victory for Patrick Mullins, who would be the first amateur jockey to prevail since Marcus Armytage in 1990, would also be a popular outcome, though tinged with regret for Paul Townend, who misses the ride on Burrows Saint through injury. But there is no doubt about the biggest potential storyline from the general public’s point of view, as Blackmore looks to ride the wave of positivity and support from her exploits at Cheltenham to a historic Grand National success. In 2018, Blackmore had just a couple of rides at the National meeting, but it still marked a significant moment in her career. Eddie O’Leary, racing manager for his brother Michael’s powerful Gigginstown Stud operation, shared a taxi with De Bromhead, who had a vacancy for stable jockey, and suggested the trainer should give Blackmore a chance. When he did, “she just kept winning”, as De Bromhead put it recently, a run of form that lifted Blackmore from the midst of the many dozens of professional jockeys in the sport’s second tier and into the elite group of riders who, for the most part, share out the Grade One races between themselves. Three years later, Blackmore will do something that only the likes of Lester, Frankie and Ruby have done before her: she will go to post for one of the season’s biggest races on first-name terms – in one direction, at least – with millions of people she will never get to meet. “Anything to get people interested, I suppose,” she said here on Friday. “I’ve not thought too much about it to be honest. “When I was young and had an interest in racing, you’d try to find something, maybe a local horse for me, that you’d keep an eye on in the Grand National, or a local trainer or jockey, that kind of thing. So I hope if they are backing me, I can make sure that they don’t go broke.”