A PENRITH based jockey has set his sights on big things ahead of riding a proven winner at the weekend.

Originally from Northern Ireland, 22-year-old Danny McMenamin moved to Penrith at the age of 17 to pursue a career as a jockey and ride some of the biggest races in the country.

“It was very daunting moving over,” said Danny.

“I'd only ever been away from home for about three months in the summer prior to that and I'd just passed my driving test probably a couple weeks before I made the journey over, so it was definitely a shot in the dark.

“There were some days I was wondering if it was the right decision just within being that young, but it’s turned out to be the right decision so far.”

“I had a breakthrough and a title a couple years back but ended up with a couple of injuries last season which sort of set me back a bit, this season's been very good now.

“I've had some nice winners and building up more contacts with trainers and hopefully keep going forward.”

News and Star: Danny is currently set to ride Malystic for Malton-based trainer Peter Niven in the ‘Game Spirit Chase’ this weekend at Newbury which is one of the weekend’s feature races.

Malystic has won his last two races so has a ‘great’ chance according to the bookies and a win would represent Malystic’s biggest win so far in his career.

McMenamin is now in his sixth season of racing and is looking ahead to the next stages of his career.

"Riding in the big festivals, like Cheltenham is definitely my aim and riding the best horses too” said Danny.

“I've got a nice few horses coming throughout the minute that I'm lucky enough to be on the back of and they're taking me to those sort of stages at the minute.”

 

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