Sam Waley-Cohen wins Grand National

An amateur jockey, Sam Waley-Cohen wins the Grand National, at Aintree, the world’s most famous race. “It’s a dream. It won’t sink in for weeks- It feels like a fantasy, and I just don’t know what to say.”

He won the Grand National on 50-1 outsider Noble Yeats, bought by his father Robert two months beforehand.

The rider, who only announced his decision to quite the saddle two days earlier, paid tribute to his younger brother Thomas who died aged 20 of bone cancer in 2004.

“These days are big family days, and obviously Thomas isn’t with us, so you always think about him on these days. I still always ride with his initials on my saddle. I do think he is sitting on my back” he said.

He was also royally congratulated on social media by his friends, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who he has been credited with getting back together after a split in their younger days – although he is keen to downplay the suggestion.

Sam, who had only around 30 rides a year, is also a successful entrepreneur with a chain of 250 dental practices in five countries, employing a total of 4, 000 people, went to boarding school with Kate Middleton, and she helped raise funds for a ward in his brother’s memory at Oxford’s Jhon Radcliffe Hospital.

Waley-Cohen, a father of three, won King George VI Chase twice and also the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Long Run a decade earlier in his father’s brown and orange silks.