Conor Shoemark is looking forward to this year’s November Meeting at Cheltenham Racecourse.

And with good reason too because the 25-year-old jockey has a pretty good record at the home of National Hunt Racing having ridden four winners there over the past few years.

Now he’s hoping to clock up his first winner at the three-day meeting in November which gets under way on Friday.

“That would be nice,” said Shoemark, who has three rides booked at Lingfield today. “The November Meeting is a fabulous meeting. All the good horses will be coming out now that we’ve had some rain.

“It’s always an exciting time to see how they have progressed.”

And what about Cheltenham itself?

“Everyone wants to win there,” continued Shoemark. “All the best horses run there, it’s the pinnacle of our sport. It’s just the size of the place, the number of people who are there make it such a great atmosphere.”

Shoemark, who was brought up in Stow-on-the-Wold, is part of a strong racing family with dad Ian and grandad Bill both former jockeys.

His younger brother Kieran, two years Conor’s junior, is a Flat jockey – he lives in Stow – and is doing pretty well as well.

Conor, meanwhile, is a freelance jockey and gets plenty of rides for the likes of Dan Skelton and Oliver Sherwood. He’s also ridden winners in the past for top Gloucestershire trainers such as Nigel Twiston-Davies, Fergal O’Brien, Kim Bailey, Martin Keighley and Jonjo O’Neill.

Skelton has been clocking up the winners for fun this season – “He’s just broken Martin Pipe’s record for the fastest to 100 winners in a season,” added Shoemark – and Shoemark himself is targeting 25 winners for the season.

Skelton’s brother Harry is his stable jockey but former Cotswold School pupil Shoemark added: “He’s got a lot of horses to ride, hopefully I can get a few winners with him.”

Shoemark admits that in an ideal world he would like the security of being a stable jockey but he’s more than happy with his lot just now.

He lives in Broadway which isn’t far from Prestbury Park and he certainly has ambitions when it comes to the National Hunt Festival in March.

“I’d love to ride a winner at the Festival,” he said. “But that’s every National Hunt jockey’s dream, they are very hard to come by.”