He took a bit of a detour along the way but Braith Nock is now where he was always destined to be.
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And at Inverell on New Year's Day, the cowboy turned jockey made a fairytale start to his racing career.
Aboard the Brett Cavanough-trained Just Strolling, Nock rode his first winner with his first ever race ride.
The 21-year-old was a popular winner as another chapter was etched in the story of one of Tamworth's most prominent racing dynasties.
The sport courses through his blood. His mum, Jane Clement, has been a trainer for over 20 years, while his father Greg Nock is himself a former champion jockey riding over 1500 winners including premierships in Sydney, Newcastle and Tamworth.
Greg's dad, Billy, was also a jockey.
His grandaunt, Lesley Jeffriess, is also a trainer while his great-grandfather was legendary horse trainer, Merv Corliss.
In the immediate aftermath Nock told Thoroughbred Central he was "lost for words".
Speaking with The Leader on Tuesday morning he said it was still sinking in.
"Yeah it's pretty surreal," he said.
Fulfilling a lifelong ambition, he started riding trackwork for Cavanough about a year ago.
"It's always been something that I was gonna eventually do," Nock said.
But he had held off throwing himself fully into it until recently, mainly to follow his rodeo passion.
Graduating to the open ranks after the 2019 season, 2022 saw him make his PBR series debut and in November travel over to Canada after being invited to compete in their national finals.
"It was an exchange program, two Australian riders go over there and two Canadians come over here for our finals," he explained.
A "pretty cool" experience, he placed second in one of the rounds and finished 11th overall. Coming back from that he then finished 12th at the PBR Australia Grand Finals in Townsville.
He has also been doing a few ABCRA events and has qualified in the bull ride for the upcoming National Finals.
He goes in ninth overall, and second in the rookie standings.
It will be a bit of a final fling so to speak. After the PBR Scone Invitational in February he'll "hang the rope up for a bit" and concentrate on his racing career.
No stranger to performing under pressure, Nock said he wasn't really feeling nervous before the race.
Guiding Just Strolling pretty much straight to the lead and to a 1.3 length win, he said it was special to not only have his mum there to witness the milestone moment, but also his dad, sister Dana and his grandma and grandpa.
For Jane, it is up there with anything she has experienced as a trainer, albeit for different reasons, her usual beaming smile beaming just that bit more.
"It was very good," she said.
"Very proud mum you could say."
She said it "did get a little bit emotional" but there weren't any tears.
"Everyone asked me if I was nervous. I wasn't nervous, I was more excited than anything," she continued, adding that she's been more nervous watching him jump on the back of a bull.
The crowd got right behind the apprentice as Just Strolling surged to the line.
"Jillian Oakenfull (wife of Inverell trainer Wayne), she was up in the grandstand and she just said 'I don't think anyone was here to watch the race, they were just here to watch Braith'," Jane said.
"They were all cheering for Braith so that was pretty awesome."
Greg said it is a big achievement and it was fabulous to see him win his first race.
"He's a chip off the old block. He's got a beautiful seat and posture and it was exactly like mine," he said.
There wasn't time for too much celebrating with Nock back in the saddle on Monday morning.
He doesn't have any more rides scheduled at this stage but expects to really get into some racing in August.
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