Perth’s Home Now For McDonald
He’s already won a Fremantle Cup as a driver and now Stuart McDonald is back in Perth seeking more success, this time with an eye towards driving and training.
The 27-year-old has made his way back to work with champion trainer Gary Hall Snr and said he was back where he wanted to be.
“It feels like home,” he told TABradio.
“It always has and it always will.”
McDonald returned to Perth last night and is wasting no time getting to work, with two drives at Gloucester Park tomorrow night.
He teams up with Beat City in the City Discount Tyres – Falken Tyre 4X4 Pace (2130m) and the exciting Jumpingjackmac in the City Discount Tyres WA Pace (1730m).
McDonald said he would still look to drive early in this Perth stint but hoped to launch his training career over the next year.
“I really want to get into the training side of things and working at Senior’s is going to give me a chance to do that,” he said.
“I want to make Senior’s my main focus now and maybe I’ll get back into doing some driving for him.
“I’ll maybe have one or two on the side.
“Hopefully, I can work up to a team where I can go out on my own but that’s a while away yet.”
McDonald moved to Victoria early in 2021 to work with Nathan Purdon and drove 17 winners in that time.
He said the highlight was his association with star mare Spellbound, who he steered to victory on eight occasions from 15 drives.
“I didn’t expect to get a Group 1 over there,” he said.
“I was close to getting more than one with her.
“I think she had five Group 1 starts for me and won one and ran second in four others.”
Tomorrow night’s Gloucester Park meeting gets underway at 4.19.
Tim Walker
Image – Hamilton Content Creators
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