Honeysuckle – the bay mare by Sulamani who carried Rachael Blackmore to back-to-back Champion Hurdles and changed how the sport viewed mares competing against the geldings – retired in March 2023 with a career record that most trainers would consider impossible. Seventeen wins from nineteen starts. Thirteen Grade 1 victories. The first mare to win the Champion Hurdle since Dawn Run in 1984. The first horse ridden by a female jockey to win the Champion Hurdle. This is the story of how an Irish-trained mare became the most beloved jumper of her generation, and why her name still draws a hush in the Cheltenham parade ring.
Table of Contents
Origins: Pedigree and Early Years
Honeysuckle was foaled on 28 April 2014. Bred in France, she was bought by Irish bloodstock agent Peter Molony for €9,500 as a foal – a price that, in hindsight, looks like the buy of the decade. She was sold on at the 2016 Goffs Land Rover Sale to her eventual owner Kenny Alexander for €110,000, and placed with County Waterford trainer Henry de Bromhead. She would never leave his Knockeen yard.
Even as a four-year-old, those who handled her noted a quiet intelligence. She was not flashy on the gallops. She did not show extraordinary speed at home. What she had – and what would define her career – was an ability to settle, find a rhythm, and finish strong over hurdles, even off a slow gallop.
Bloodlines: Sulamani and First Royal
Honeysuckle’s sire Sulamani (by Hernando out of Soul Dream) was a Group 1 Flat horse on the level – an Arc de Triomphe-beaten favourite and winner of the Prix Niel, the Prix Lupin, and three top-level Flat races in the United States. He retired to stud and proved a notable sire of National Hunt horses, including Champion Hurdle winner Buveur d’Air and Champion Bumper winner Briar Hill.
Her dam First Royal (by Lavirco) was an unraced German-bred mare whose own dam, First Dance, was a Group winner. The black-type produced the stamina and the toughness; Sulamani added the Flat speed. The combination – speed plus reserves – is exactly what produces a Champion Hurdle horse.
Early Career: Bumpers and the Mares’ Novice
Honeysuckle ran her first race in a Dromahane mares’ bumper on 15 December 2018, ridden by Rachael Blackmore for the first time. She won. She would win her next eight races on the bounce.
Her early targets were the routine Irish hurdle pattern races: a maiden hurdle at Fairyhouse, a Royal Bond at Fairyhouse, and finally the Grade 1 Mares’ Novice Hurdle Championship Final at Fairyhouse on 21 April 2019. She won that, too, by twelve lengths, and the Henry de Bromhead camp privately began to think she might be Champion Hurdle material rather than a mares-only specialist.
The Rise: Hatton’s Grace and the Irish Champion Hurdle
The 2019/20 season was when Honeysuckle stopped being “just” a good mare and started becoming a serious Champion Hurdle contender. She won the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse in December 2019 by half a length over Petit Mouchoir; she won the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown in February 2020 by ten lengths; and she completed the 2020 Cheltenham campaign by winning the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle. Three Grade 1s in a season.
The decision not to run her against the boys in the 2020 Champion Hurdle – won by Epatante – was strategic. The team felt she was a year early. They were almost certainly right.
Cheltenham 2021: The First Champion Hurdle
On 16 March 2021 Honeysuckle lined up for the Unibet Champion Hurdle. The field included reigning champion Epatante, the brilliant Sharjah, Saint Roi, and Aspire Tower. Honeysuckle was the 8/11 favourite. The race was run in front of an empty grandstand – this was the COVID year – but the result was perfect.
Blackmore tracked the leaders through the early stages, took up the running approaching the second-last, and the mare lengthened up the hill with a determination that left no doubt. She won by six and a half lengths. It was the first time a mare had won the Champion Hurdle since Dawn Run forty-seven years before, and the first time a female jockey had ridden the winner.
Two days later, Blackmore would win the Gold Cup on Minella Indo. The 2021 Cheltenham Festival was historic, and Honeysuckle was the heart of it.
Cheltenham 2022: The Back-to-Back
The 2021/22 season was effectively a procession. She won the Hatton’s Grace for the third time, the Irish Champion Hurdle again, and then returned to Cheltenham as the 8/11 favourite for the Champion Hurdle. The field included the talented Epatante, Klassical Dream and an outsider called State Man – the horse who would, eighteen months later, end Honeysuckle’s unbeaten record.
The race was tactically harder than 2021. She had to work for it. But she pulled clear from the last and won by two and a quarter lengths from Epatante. Back-to-back Champion Hurdles. Eleven Grade 1s. Fifteen wins from fifteen starts at that point. The mare from Knockeen had become the face of National Hunt racing.
The First Defeats and the Final Race
Every great career meets a turning point. For Honeysuckle, it came at Fairyhouse on 27 November 2022, in the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle. Willie Mullins’ six-year-old State Man, sharper and three years younger, beat her by three-and-a-quarter lengths. It was her first defeat in nineteen months, and she finished her run unaccustomedly leg-weary.
She returned to Leopardstown for the 2023 Irish Champion Hurdle on 5 February. State Man beat her again, this time by a length and a quarter. The team made the call that has defined Henry de Bromhead’s career: rather than chase a third Champion Hurdle and risk a third defeat, they dropped Honeysuckle back to the Mares’ Hurdle for one final Cheltenham start.
On 14 March 2023 Honeysuckle ran in the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle. The Cheltenham crowd, who had not been allowed to watch her Champion Hurdle wins in person because of COVID, were finally there. She was sent off at 8/11. She pulled clear from the last, ridden by Blackmore for the seventeenth and final time, and won by six and a half lengths. Emotionally, it remains one of the most affecting moments in the history of the Festival.
Retirement: 14 March 2023
Honeysuckle was retired immediately after her final Cheltenham win. She had run nineteen times. She had won seventeen times. She had finished placed in the other two. She had earned £1,317,181. She was nine years old.
The retirement decision was Henry de Bromhead’s and Kenny Alexander’s, and it was an act of welfare as much as sentiment. The owner committed to keeping her with the trainer for the rest of her life. She was paraded at Punchestown a month later. She would not run again.
Legacy: What Honeysuckle Changed
- For mares: she demonstrated that a mare can sit down with the best geldings in an open Grade 1 hurdle. Top Trumps, Marie’s Rock and Brides Hill have followed in her footsteps.
- For female jockeys: Rachael Blackmore was already established before Honeysuckle, but the partnership took her to a different level of recognition. The IFHA voted Blackmore the world’s leading female jockey four years running.
- For Henry de Bromhead: Knockeen Stables, already producing top horses, became a global destination yard. A Plus Tard, Minella Indo and Bob Olinger all had Honeysuckle as their stable companion through their best years.
- For the sport: she was the rare jumper who attracted casual fans – the people who tuned in only for Cheltenham. Her presence at the Festival materially shaped the audience for jumps racing in the early 2020s.
Career Statistics at a Glance
- Years racing: December 2018 – March 2023
- Total starts: 19
- Wins: 17
- 2nds: 1 (2023 Irish Champion Hurdle)
- 3rds: 1 (2022 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle – recorded as defeat)
- Grade 1 wins: 13
- Cheltenham Festival wins: 4 (Mares’ Hurdle 2020, Champion Hurdle 2021, Champion Hurdle 2022, Mares’ Hurdle 2023)
- Career earnings: £1,317,181 (approximately €1,520,000)
- Top Timeform rating: 165
The People Behind Her
Trainer Henry de Bromhead grew up in racing – his father Harry was a Curragh-based Flat trainer, and Henry took over Knockeen Stables in 2002. He had already trained Champion Chase winner Sizing John (sold to Jessica Harrington) and Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Minella Indo. Honeysuckle was the horse that put his yard at the top of National Hunt training in Ireland.
Jockey Rachael Blackmore turned professional in 2015. She rode Honeysuckle in every single one of her nineteen races. Blackmore won the 2021 Grand National on Minella Times (the first female jockey to do so), Cheltenham’s Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup in the same week, and was named the BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year for 2021.
Owner Kenny Alexander – the former chief executive of gambling firm GVC Holdings – has been one of Irish racing’s most enthusiastic owners. His purple-and-yellow silks remain among the most recognisable colours in the sport.
For more on great Cheltenham horses, see our biographies of Red Rum, Kauto Star, Arkle, Desert Orchid, and Altior.
Frequently Asked Questions
Was Honeysuckle undefeated?
No. Honeysuckle had a remarkable unbeaten run of sixteen consecutive races from her debut in December 2018 to the 2022 Punchestown Champion Hurdle. She was then defeated in the 2022 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle (her first defeat) and the 2023 Irish Champion Hurdle, both by State Man. She returned to win her final race, the 2023 Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, ending her career with 17 wins from 19 starts.
Who beat Honeysuckle?
State Man, trained by Willie Mullins. He beat her in the 2022 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle and the 2023 Irish Champion Hurdle. He went on to win the 2024 Champion Hurdle in his own right.
How many Champion Hurdles did Honeysuckle win?
Two – the 2021 and 2022 renewals. She was the first mare to win the Champion Hurdle since Dawn Run in 1984, and the first horse ridden by a female jockey ever to win it.
Where is Honeysuckle now?
Honeysuckle remains at Henry de Bromhead’s Knockeen Stables in County Waterford. Owner Kenny Alexander has committed that she will live out her retirement at the yard. She is paraded occasionally at major Irish race meetings.
Will Honeysuckle be bred from?
There has been no official confirmation of a breeding career for Honeysuckle. As a mare with thirteen Grade 1 wins, she would be an exceptionally attractive broodmare prospect, but neither Henry de Bromhead nor Kenny Alexander has publicly committed to a stud career. The decision will ultimately be the owner’s.
