Born in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland on June 5, 2000, Danny McMenamin began his riding career with local point-to-point trainer Brian Hamilton, before honing his riding skills under the tutelage of Ger Lyons in Dunsany, County Meath during the summer of 2017. Of the latter spell, he said, “It really helped with my style of riding and my positioning on a horse.”
A relative introduced him to former jockey Tony Dobbin who, in turn, put him in touch with his former employer, Nicky Richards, son of Gordon, who is based in Penrith, Cumbria. Having crossed the Irish Sea, McMenamin rode his first winner, Western Rules, trained by Nicky Richards, on his first ride under Rules in Britain, in an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle at Ayr on March 9, 2018.
On November 18, 2018, as a 7lb claimer having just his third ride at Cheltenham, McMenamin won the valuable Greatwood Handicap Hurdle on Nietzsche, trained by Brian Ellison. Of that success, he said later, “It certainly opened up a lot of doors for me after that and greatly aided my career.”
In the 2018/19 season as a whole, McMenamin rode 16 winners, followed by 28 in 2019/20 and 46 in 2020/21. He rode out his claim on Archie Brown, trained by Henry Hogarth, in a novices’ handicap chase at Market Rasen on February 21, 2021 and, two months later, was presented with the trophy for the conditional jockeys’ championship, finishing well ahead of his nearest rival. At that stage, McMenamin expressed his gratitude to Dobbin and to his coach, Brian Harding, another former stable jockey to Nicky Richards.
McMenamin enjoyed his most successful season, so far, numerically and fiscally, in 2024/25, when he rode 70 winners from 466 rides, at an overall strike rate of 15%, and amassed just over £900,000 in prize money. Understandably, in his career as a whole, Nicky Richards has been his principal benefactor, but he has enoyed profitable associations with various Northern trainers, not least Ann Hamilton, who is based in Capheaton, Northumberland.
At the time of writing, McMenamin has yet to ride a Grade 1 winner, but Ann Hamilton has provided him with three of his four Grade 2 winners. The first of them was Nuts Well in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree on October 25, 2020 and was followed by Tommy’s Oscar in the Champion Hurdle Trial at Haydock on January 22, 2022 and the same horse in the Lightning Novices’ Chase at Doncaster on January 28, 2023.