‘Everything was groundbreaking’ – 50 years since historic Cheltenham ride

It says much about the strides made in the battle for equality in the saddle that a win for a female jockey at Cheltenham this week would barely register as noteworthy.

It is, after all, 43 years on since Caroline Beasley became the first woman to win a race at the Festival on Eliogarty in the Foxhunters in 1983, 39 years since Gee Armytage first beat professional men on Gee A in 1987, and five since the incomparable Rachael Blackmore became top jockey at the meeting with six winners in 2021.

Then there is Khadijah Mellah and current rising star Aamilah Aswat.

Yet for all the undoubted progress made, none of the above could have happened without the pioneers who made those first hairline cracks in the glass ceiling.

Pioneers in the saddle whose stubbornness and courage enabled and smoothed the path for those who followed.

Gillian Fortescue-Thomas, now in her seventies, was one such rider despite never winning a race at the Festival.

She was, however, the first woman to complete a race, finishing second in the Cathcart Chase in 1976 on a veteran hunter called Stanhope Street.

Fortescue-Thomas had already become the first female jockey to ride a winner at Ascot as she built a relationship with the 12-year-old but Cheltenham was a step up.

“Everything was groundbreaking,” she told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

“I was just doing a job I enjoyed and doing the best I could. You don’t think about what you are doing when you are younger you just do it.

In the early 70s, it was motorsport that satisfied her competitive and groundbreaking spirit, racing Ford Escort Mexicos around tracks like Brands Hatch and Silverstone, counting driving legends Stirling Moss and Graham Hill as friends.

She was good, too, winning plenty of races and once finishing a close second to Jody Scheckter at a race at Brands Hatch in 1971.

By the mid 70s, Fortescue-Thomas had swapped to natural horse power and, after the Sex Discrimination Act of November 1975 paved the way for a push towards equality, she set her sights on Cheltenham.

“I just wanted not to make a fool of myself and make sure I wasn’t going to do anything stupid,” she said about her preparation for competing at the Festival.

However, her thorough pre-race work did not quite go according to plan.

Struggling with the hype surrounding the Festival, Stanhope Street almost pulled himself up after one circuit.

“It was a very awkward race for me,” Fortescue-Thomas said.

“Stanhope Street was a complete flop. He had won two point to points but back with the white rails and with all the noise and tannoy he didn’t enjoy it. We were tailed off after the first circuit.

“I sat very patiently feeling an absolute idiot, looking an idiot, feeling an idiot, I was about to pull him up at the top of the hill.

“I thought if I get off him and lead him home people would realise there was something wrong and I might not get a roasting from those who had put their money on.

“But I got to the top of the hill and tried again to encourage him and suddenly he went ‘OK fine!’

“What was embarrassing at first, became almost more embarrassing by passing all the horses and we ended up passing everything at a rate of knots.”

They did not catch winner Mickey Seabright but they swept past everything else to fly up the hill and finish second by 12 lengths with Fortescue-Thomas becoming first woman to finish a race at the Festival.

Timeform, the racing form bible, said the horse seemed to have “been given far too much to do” but did note that the considerate riding of Fortescue-Thomas may have made “some contribution” to his return to form in 1976.

“At the end of it some chap who had seen me walk the course [beforehand] said ‘Well there you are dear, you only had to follow the others didn’t you?'” Fortescue-Thomas recalled.