'Racing has always been in my life' - Olympics heroine Sam Quek opens up on her love of racing, joining the ITV team and unexpected abuse

This interview was originally published to Racing Post+ Ultimate subscribers. Sign up now and you can read more fantastic interviews in the build-up to the Grand National, plus you'll have exclusive access to the best betting brains in the business for all three days of Aintree. Click here and get 25% off your first six months.

Sam Quek has not arrived alone. The Olympic gold medallist has travelled to Manor House Stables in Cheshire not only with husband Tom Mairs, but also, among other things, a set of framed racing silks, the racing-themed table plan from the couple's racing-themed Chester racecourse wedding and the Newmarket racecard from the day she had a runner in the 1,000 Guineas.

Quek, lest you be in any way uncertain, is not unfamiliar with racing. More than that, she absolutely loves the sport. This is no bad thing as she will be working for ITV at the Randox Grand National festival, where her involvement has been derided by some as a very bad thing indeed. 

In part, that's one of the reasons we are here in the exceptionally smart owners' facility at Michael Owen's stunning racing stables. Owen is downstairs in the office along with Hugo Palmer, who across 2023 and 2024 trained Stenton Glider to finish second in four Pattern contests for Quek, Mairs, and his mother Jane. Like Owen, Quek has transitioned from a sporting career to broadcasting and has done extremely well, albeit not well enough for a few racing fans to be happy about her joining the ITV Racing team at Aintree. Indeed, a few of them seem to be utterly horrified.

"Grand National ruined," wrote one incensed individual on X, while another asked: "What knowledge or expertise dose [sic] she bring to it?" Linking the aggrieved (and affronted) parties was a sense of bewilderment that Quek, a member of the Great Britain hockey team which won gold in Rio nine years ago, could possibly be considered qualified to comment on the racing calendar's showpiece prize. 

It turns out she is rather more qualified than they think. Not only is Quek thoroughly experienced in live television, having presented coverage of the Tokyo Olympics for the BBC and worked on football, NFL and rugby union for Channel 4 and Channel 5, she is also a long-time racing fan who for years was a paid-up annual member at Chester. As well as being an owner who had a runner at the 2015 Cheltenham Festival, she and Mairs are now breeders, with Stenton Glider having been scanned in foal to Coolmore stallion No Nay Never.

Sam Quek, pictured with childhood photographs of herself and her ponyCredit: Edward Whitaker

For those who might still demand further proof of her suitability for the Grand National job, Quek will be known to millions of once-a-year racing viewers having competed in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing and previously ridden the reality circuit on shows like Celebrity Masterchef, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! and a celebrity special of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in which she won £16,000 for WellChild. On top of all that, she is a Liverpool FC fan who was born in Liverpool, although detractors have even raised doubts about that.

"It was a bit like hysteria," says Quek. "In every sport I've worked in over the last ten years, the reception I've been given has always felt quite welcoming, so I was surprised by the reaction I got when it was announced I was joining the ITV Racing team for Aintree. 

"I was actually disappointed. My experience of racing to that point had always been so positive, welcoming and inclusive. After the reaction to the ITV announcement, it feels like that has been flipped on its head."

Quek is likely to receive a much friendlier reception at Aintree, where her primary remit is to mix with racegoers enjoying a festival whose crown jewel has long had a special place in her heart.

"I've got a huge family that has always been massively into racing, so it's always been in my life," she says. "We used to host a fantastic Grand National party and had 30 to 40 people crammed in our house to watch the race. We were all given a horse and because I played hockey, mine was Ad Hoc more than once. A few years later, when I was 17 or 18, I had an England camp in Manchester and I remember being gutted I might not make it back home for the National. I have so many memories linked to the race."

Other memories were made as a girl on the back of a pony. There is photo evidence of that on the table in front of us. Evidence of the now 36-year-old's strong interest in racing can be found throughout the home she shares with Mairs and their two young children.

"People don't realise we are mega racing fans," says Mairs, who sounds giddily excited when talking about a photograph of Frankel, signed by Tom Queally, that adorns one of their walls. 

"Our entire wedding was themed on racing," says Quek, picking up on her husband's point. "We even got married at Chester racecourse. When we were talking about potential venues, I said to Tom I wanted to get married on a perfect lawn on a sunny day. I loved the parade ring at Chester, so we got permission to do it there, but then four days out from the wedding there was a forecast for torrential weather. At the last minute we changed to a marquee at the racecourse and Tom put down artificial turf."

The wedding came six months after Quek had made her professional racecourse debut, working alongside Nick Luck at the Dubai World Cup. At Aintree, as it was at Meydan, her role will not involve detailed dissection of form or analysis of mid-race scrimmaging.

"I'm not a racing expert, and I'm never going to be an expert, but I'm also not afraid to ask what some people might think are stupid questions," she explains.

From talk of stupid questions, we progress to talk of the stupid comments that began to proliferate across social media when ITV revealed its plans for the Grand National festival.

"I started getting tagged on social media and things began to build up," says Quek. "People were asking, 'Why is a hockey player doing racing? What does she know about horses?'. Later in the day I saw someone joking that if I had gone and negotiated a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, some people would still have said, 'But why was she there?'. I've even had people saying I'm not from Liverpool just because I now live on the Wirral. 

"Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I don't expect everyone to like me, just as I don't like everyone, but I wouldn't feel the need to have a personal vendetta against someone, whereas I think some people do. They do it for a reaction and a fight. I just dismiss it, so it doesn't bother me, but it's unacceptable and I shouldn't have to be big enough to take it."

Sam Quek: "I'm not there to replace AP McCoy, Ruby Walsh or Alice Plunkett"Credit: Edward Whitaker

Quek adds: "I'm not there to replace AP McCoy, Ruby Walsh or Alice Plunkett. I'm there to do the crossover work and, to be honest, I think I'm perfect for that. I want to get across my passion for racing to people who might be watching the biggest race in the world for the first time. 

"I'm really excited about the role and I think I can do a great job blending broadcasting and a sport I love. That's why none of the criticism triggered me too much. The opinions that matter to me are the ones that come from the people who matter."

The abuse did, however, cause her to consider racing's unwillingness to change and the potential consequences of failing to modernise.

"It got me thinking whether racing needs to be more welcoming and understanding," says Quek. "The sort of racing purists who criticised me don't want to know about fashion, food or all the other stuff you can do at a raceday, they just want to know about racing. 

"I don't have a problem with that but there are also plenty of people who do enjoy going racing for the fashion, food and fun, as well as watching the racing and having a bit of flutter. These are the people we need to embrace – and I know that first hand because of what has happened in hockey."

She continues: "Ten million people watched hockey the night we won gold. Suddenly there was massive excitement about the sport. Clubs had waiting lists and there weren't enough training sessions to accommodate the people who wanted to take up or restart playing hockey. 

"Unfortunately, as a sport we were naive and just happy to have the same purists filling our stadiums. Look at hockey now and you see a sport that has died on the vine. You don't see hockey on terrestrial television. It doesn't even get the pay-per-view coverage it used to have. 

"I would hate racing to slowly go down that path, simply because we haven't leant into changing times. We can already see that Cheltenham Festival attendances are dwindling. I have a passion for racing but I also know we need to make it open to as many people as possible."

Her passion convinced her to follow the lead of an uncle and become involved in Manor House syndicates. In 2021 Quek and Mairs went one step further by taking a 50 per cent share in a £35,000 Dandy Man yearling filly.

Sam Quek, pictured with the racing silks carried by her high-class filly Stenton GliderCredit: Edward Whitaker

"Our only dream was to have a runner at Chester," says Mairs, whose mother took the remaining half-share. "The idea of winning a race at Chester was amazing, so when Stenton won there on her debut, I thought we'd done more in racing than we could ever have imagined."

That view was strengthened when a chunky offer came through to Manor House.

"We were offered ten times what we paid for her after just that one race," says Quek. "Tom wanted to sell but his mum and I wanted to keep her. Tom thought we could buy two nice horses with the sale money but I asked him what was the chance of getting another one as good as Stenton? My thinking was, what would make you feel worse, if we sold her and she went on to do amazing things or if we kept her and she turned out to be an ordinary horse."

The filly never won again but she was far from ordinary, as she showed on her second start when finishing runner-up in the Fred Darling Stakes. It was an effort that prompted Palmer to target her at the 1,000 Guineas, whose Newmarket racecard included a feature on Quek. Regrettably for Stenton Glider's famous part-owner, the Sunday Classic clashed with a sizeable prior commitment in Liverpool.

"When I looked at the date of the Guineas, I realised it was the same day as the Eurovision Song Contest launch event I was booked to host," she says. "It was a four-hour broadcast with no breaks in which we interviewed every single act. It was a direct clash with the Guineas, the same day and the same time. I couldn't even watch the race."

When Quek did, she saw her 50-1 shot finish 13th of the 20th runners. A month later Stenton Glider bounced back to finish second in the German 1,000 Guineas, while 2024's four-year-old campaign included a Group 2 third in Dubai and a Group 3 second at Lingfield. Photographs and racecards from all 11 runs are kept in a scrapbook that should need plenty of spare pages now that their star performer has embarked on a new life as a broodmare. 

"I've asked Tom if it would be weird if I was there at the birth," says Quek, who has asked other questions, many of them from the perspective of a former athlete who, alongside her teammates, scaled the greatest heights of sporting achievement.

"If we were going to a competition and knew all our games were going to be in the evening, our hard training sessions would be at game time," says Quek. "For that reason, why are horses always out on the gallops at the crack of dawn when they race in the afternoon or evening?"

Sam Quek: "The Grand National is part of the make-up of Liverpool and it's part of the city's social calendar"Credit: Edward Whitaker

Simple explanations can be offered but that does not mean the question is silly, although by the end of the week Quek will have answered an array of silly questions when filming an episode of Blankety Blank. After that, all roads lead to Aintree for the jewel in racing's crown and another chance to showcase the great city of Liverpool.

"The Grand National is ours," says Quek. "That's our week, our stage and we welcome everyone, no matter where they come from. It's something that as a city as we do, which I think you saw when we hosted Eurovision. 

"The Grand National is part of the make-up of Liverpool and it's part of the city's social calendar. For people in Liverpool preparations for the Grand National start months ahead of the race. It's all about, where are you meeting for pre-drinks, how are you getting there and what are you wearing? I'm always a nightmare when it comes to deciding late what I'm going to wear but I'm already booked in for my fake tan and nails."

Quek and Mairs both laugh.

"This is all Liverpool women, by the way," says Mairs, yet only one Liverpool woman will be working for ITV Racing on the Grand National coverage. Be in no doubt, she cannot wait.

"I think I'm doing one Social Stable bit with Oli Bell and then I'm going to be out in the crowd, bridging the gap between the purists and the casual audience," says Quek. "I want to get across why I love racing so much. The reason I'm into NFL is because Tom was so into it. His passion and energy sold me, so much so that I'm now even more of an NFL geek than him. When you love something, you want to share it."

She most definitely loves the Grand National.

"I hadn't experienced it in the flesh until One For Arthur's year in 2017 because I had always been away with hockey or sport," says Quek. "I think I welled up and cried that first time. I felt proud. I was proud of what Aintree had put on and proud of how the city had come together to stage one of the world's biggest sporting events. I still have that same emotional feeling. Knowing I'll be contributing to the event on ITV will be the cherry on the cake."

Read these next:

Who will win the 2025 Grand National based on previous trends? 

Find out who takes on Jonbon as day two fields for Aintree's Grand National festival confirmed  

Constitution Hill-Lossiemouth rematch on but Lulamba absent as day one fields for Aintree's Grand National festival confirmed 

Grand National 2025: start time, runners, favourites & key details 

2025 Grand National field takes clearer shape after six horses removed and pecking order for contenders on cut line confirmed 

Subscribe to Racing Post+ Ultimate now