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.
It will be the women who followed Fortescue-Thomas, and those who will continue to do so in the future, who owe her a bigger debt of gratitude.
