FEATURE SAM WALEY-COHEN
Sam Waley-Cohen holds up the Cheltenham Gold Cup after his 2011 victory with five-year-old Long Run, owned by his father
He was the first amateur jockey to win the race in 30 years, doing so in record time aboard Long Run, who beat Denman by seven lengths
time: “I have nothing but admiration for the professional jockeys – it’s an unbelievably tough life being on the road so much, while also having the pressure and the injuries. “Yes, there are successes but there’s an incredible hardness that they have to have, and for me, I wanted to do the sport for the love of it. I never wanted to win a race and think about the money… “I think that as soon as you go professional, it inevitably becomes about earning a living and it’s about the money. You can’t escape from that really and I thought it would change the sport for me. I was in a position where I had a business as an entrepreneur that I wanted to pursue and it allowed me to do both things.” Despite no longer riding as a jockey, Sam’s life remains as a busy as ever both in his professional life as CEO of Portman Dental Care and as a husband to Annabel and father to their three children, Maximilian, Scarlett and Alexander.
no more than that. I was always keen and dreamt of having a ride around the Grand National course and at the Cheltenham Festival, but my ambitions were never a whole lot more than that really.” Father Robert recalls that there was one ambition the pair shared, which was ultimately never fulfilled. He explains: “When Sam started riding we just set out to have fun, and if there was one race we dreamt of winning, it was the Festival Hunters’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. “The dream would have been for us to win the race with a homebred horse in my colours, trained by me and ridden by Sam. I think the closest Sam came to success in my colours on a horse trained by me was on Bica (who was 5th in 2007), and he was placed a few times for other people, too. “We had to settle for winning the preceding race [the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Long Run in 2011], so it worked out OK in the end!”
After his famous Aintree victory earlier this year, Sam reflected on his amateur career and listed the reasons he had not joined his weighing room colleagues in the professional ranks. He said at the However, he plans to maintain a close link with racing and goes on: “I am still riding out and schooling in the mornings. I just love horses and being out in the Sam’s extraordinary career had begun 23 years ago, purely as ‘a bit of fun’
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