Sam in his last race won on 50/1 outsider Noble Yeats, who dad Robert bought just two months ago. After his win the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tweeted: “Huge congratulations to @swaleycohen. What a approach to retire!” The 39-year-old is credited with reuniting pal Kate Middleton with Prince William after they split in 2007 while dating.
He invited them to a celebration at his Seventeenth-century Oxfordshire mansion. In weeks they were back together and holidaying within the Seychelles.
Bookies say Sam’s odds of winning the Sports Personality vote in December have halved to 50/1.
Coral said: “Now having ended his profession with victory within the famous Aintree race, Sam Waley-Cohen surely needs to be within the running for this yr’s BBC award.”
Sam went to boarding school with Kate and she or he helped raise funds for a ward in his brother’s Thomas’s memory at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.
Thomas died aged 20 of bone cancer in 2004. After Saturday’s race, Sam said: “Lately are big family days, and clearly Thomas isn’t with us, so you usually take into consideration him on lately. I all the time ride along with his initials on my saddle. I do think he’s sitting on my back.
“It’s a fairytale, a fantasy. There’s a whole lot of love and gratefulness.”
Yesterday, Sam, his dad, the winning horse and trainer Emmet Mullins had a homecoming parade in County Carlow, Ireland.
Sam has been riding for 23 years and won the Cheltenham Gold Cup and had 4 other top-10 National finishes. After his win he said he would have a good time with a cup of tea.
Waley-Cohen – a father-of-three – also owns 250 dental practices.
Aintree’s 70,000 sellout on Saturday follows Covid lock-outs.
