Roy Keane, Rory McIlroy and Rachael Blackmore - for all her humility, that's the realm in which this proper legend of Irish sport belongs

Over the past few days writers, broadcasters and commentators have been busy weighing up where Rachael Blackmore belongs in the pantheon of racing's greatest jump jockeys.

It's a perfectly legitimate undertaking but to confine her legacy to the parameters of her own discipline is to miss the point spectacularly. Blackmore's exploits are right up there with any of the most lauded Irish sporting icons whose endeavours on an international stage elevated this little green outcrop, a teardrop in the Atlantic Ocean, into the global consciousness. 

Blackmore was more than a fabulous jockey. She had to be because she ultimately went where no woman had ever gone before, and that's not to undermine any of what her predecessors had done in paving the way across the previous 40-odd years.