One can think of worse ways to sign off as a jockey than winning the Grand National, a feat Sam Waley-Cohen pulled off after piloting Noble Yeats to a surprise victory at Aintree in 2022.
The triumph was all the more shocking given Waley-Cohen—son of breeder and trainer, Robert—was only an amateur in the National Hunt and didn’t race full-time. It mirrored his achievement in riding Long Run to success at the Cheltenham Gold Cup 11 years prior, though 50/1 Noble Yeats was a much greater shock for the bookies.
As if the scale of that upset wasn’t enough to take, Waley-Cohen’s success off the track is enough to make his rivals wince all the more. That’s thanks to the fact the 40-year-old has built a staggering portfolio of more than 200 dental practices since 2008 when he founded Portman Dentalcare.
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The racing enthusiast has steadily grown his empire over the past decade-and-a-half, scaling from a single dentistry 14 years ago to more than 160 in 2020. And while the Covid-19 pandemic pumped the brakes on many businesses and enterprises, his reach has continued to grow despite the economic decline.
Portman has even expanded its services to mainland Europe, with footholds in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The company website describes CEO Waley-Cohen as being responsible for Portman’s ‘overall strategy and focus’, and he doesn’t appear to have steered them wrong thus far.
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(Image: PA)
Despite his amateur status as a jockey, Waley-Cohen was anything but based on his results and shared a particular affinity with Aintree. More than a decade prior to ending his career in Grand National glory, he managed a second-place finish behind Ballabriggs in the 2011 contest, ending up 12 lengths behind on Oscar Time.
The dental expert showed a lot of gumption on that terrain and earned seven wins on the Grand National course altogether. Last year’s famous win made him the first amateur to win a Grand National since Marcus Armytage did so in 1990 when Mr Frisk cleared the field by 20 lengths.
(Image: Getty Images)
Success in horse racing was always on the cards for Waley-Cohen considering his Eton-educated father—a former chairman of Cheltenham racecourse—paved a way into the industry with his breeder links. The Waley-Cohen family lineage runs deeper still, with Sam’s grandfather, Bernard, having served as Lord Mayor of London, while his great-great-grandfather, Marcus Samuel, founded Shell Oil.
It’s often the case that career sportspeople find themselves with too much time on their hands after giving up their first careers. Waley-Cohen appears to be at no such risk, however, as his dental dynasty continues to go from strength to strength.
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