THE career of a 50-1 Grand National hero looks to have come to a sad end – as his trainer admitted: “This isn’t what he wants to do.”
Noble Yeats was as good as a Royal winner of the world’s most famous race in 2022.
The heroic horse was ridden by amateur jockey and ultra-rich dentist Sam Waley-Cohen, who is a good mate of Kate Middleton.
In fact, good mate probably doesn’t quite do it justice.
Depending on who you believe, Sam was rumoured to be the matchmaker who got Kate and William back together and cemented their relationship for good after a brief split early in their romance.
And they were among the first to congratulate him when he roared past the Aintree crowd in first three years ago.
It was a fairytale win for Sam, who retired straight after.
But Noble Yeats kept going and six months after his £500,000 Grand National win he won back-to-back races, including a Grade 2 at his beloved Aintree.
In 2023 he was a respectable fourth in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham and in January last year won a thrilling Cleeve Hurdle in a head-bobber with Paisley Park.
But the wheels would later fall off and he came 19th of 21 finishers in last year’s Grand National.
He was pulled up on the only occasion he ran this year, when sent off 22-1 for a hurdles race at Leopardstown in Ireland over Christmas.
Now trainer Emmet Mullins has revealed not all was right with him that day.
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”Legendary racing commentator Derek ‘Tommo’ Thompson announces retirement after 60-year career ” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6366454501112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]And it looks like his racing career will soon – if not already – be brought to an end.
He told the Nick Luck Daily podcast: “Noble Yeats has gone home, he’s gone back to the Waley-Cohens.
[authenticated-scripts src=”%3Cscript%20class%3D%22palin-poll%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thesun.co.uk%2Fpollingwidgets%2Fv3%2Fwidget.js%3Fquestion_id%3D102982%26game%3Dpolling%22%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E” type=”embedded” width=”100″ /]“He just doesn’t seem to be himself and we’re just going to press reset and we’ll have a discussion later about what we do with him.
“I would say he’s just a bit apprehensive – he refused to go into the parade ring at Leopardstown.
“He wasn’t enjoying his job.
“He’s gone on a break and I’m not sure what the future holds for him to be honest.
“We’ve had some great days. Gold Cups, Grand Nationals, Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris… he’s brought us plenty of big races.
“He never let us down but as people say, you have to listen to the horse.
“And he fairly told us at Leopardstown this isn’t what he wanted to do.”
Should the curtain come down on his career then Noble Yeats will retire having amassed prize money of over £750,000.
At seven years old, he was the youngest winner of the Grand National since 1940 and a true titan of the turf.