Robbie McNamara remains keen to start up training career

Robbie McNamara remains keen to start up a training career from the middle of next year as he continues to recover from serious injuries suffered in a fall at Wexford in April.

The jockey was due to partner last year's Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Lord Windermere in the Crabbie's Grand National at Aintree, but suffered multiple injuries when coming to grief in a fall from Bursledon in a handicap hurdle at Wexford the previous day.

Almost four months on, McNamara is now based at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire and although still confined to a wheelchair, he spoke positively about his future as he enjoyed a couple of days out of hospital at the Galway Festival.

“I’m not going to do it (start training) straight away. I’m going to get out of hospital and get a house sorted and I’ll probably aim for the middle of next year,” McNamara told At The Races.

“I’ll be heading to the sales in the summer and give it a go after that. I’d like to get back into an old routine before I put the pressure of training on top of me.”

“I’ll go to the Curragh and rent the yard. I’m not going to invest fortunes in it by buying a yard.

“You’ve got every amenity at the Curragh — it’s the best training facility in the country. It would be a bit silly not to take advantage.

“I know the Curragh like the back of my hand. There’s 10 different gallops there and I’ve ridden work on every single one of them.”

McNamara admits it is no easy task to start up a training career and will draw stumps if it does not go as planned.

He said: “I’ll have a yard set up and staff organised before I start training. I’d like to give the training a go, but if in two years time it wasn’t working out, I’d pull the plug. I’m not going to go running myself into the ground training bad horses.

“I’d be very disappointed if it didn’t work out, but I’m not going to go chasing up a tree and gaining nothing from it.”