Harry Bentley is wasting no time getting back into the flow. It was Friday evening when the English jockey arrived in Hong Kong from a European summer mixed with holiday recuperation, physical rehabilitation, and hard fitness work; Saturday, he was with the Hong Kong Jockey Club doctor, cleared fit to ride for the first time since a crashing fall on June 13; Sunday, he was back at trackwork; Monday, barrier trials at Conghua.
His bone-crunching, tumbling fall from Smiling Falcon 10 weeks ago cut short his best season yet in Hong Kong, involving a tally of 34 wins and two significant triumphs: Tomodachi Kokoroe in the G2 Premier Bowl, and Stormy Grove in the high-profile Hong Kong Classic Cup, the second leg of the Classic Series.
“The fall did a bit of a job on me,” Bentley told Idol Horse. “I broke my left forearm, five ribs and had a fracture to my shoulder blade, the scapula. These things take a bit of recovery to come back from, but I have to say that I’m quite pleased with the improvement I’ve made since then.”
Bentley, 34, has been riding in Hong Kong for more than five years now, long enough to know that today’s hero can so easily become tomorrow’s yesterday man. That being so, he is thankful that the fall occurred when it did, with only a month of the 2025-26 season left before Hong Kong racing’s summer break arrived.
“I guess the only way to look at it is that it could have happened at a worse time, because I only missed a month of the season rather than the best part of three months if it were to have been in the middle of the season,” he said.
“It was still extremely frustrating because I was really pleased with how the season had gone. It was definitely my best as far as quality and my winners, but I’d love to have broken into the forty wins bracket, it just wasn’t meant to be.”
His best tally came in the 2023-24 season, 39 wins, and his 34 this past campaign fell short of the 40-win benchmark he is hungry for. But he feels he is in the right shape to shoot for the target again this campaign and is looking forward with optimism to the season opener on September 6.
“I’d love to get to the forty mark,” he said. “I mean, that was a goal of mine last season, which obviously I fell short of, but I’d love to get to that number.”
The nature of Bentley’s injuries and the timing of the fall meant he took advantage of the opportunity to refresh his mind as well as heal his body.
“For the first four weeks I had a good rest and just gave the body a chance to catch up with what happened, and took it easy really,” he said. “I was always mobile so I was never bedridden, but I just took the first four weeks to enjoy some time off, mentally and physically.
“After that, I started seeing a physiotherapist and getting plenty of manual manipulation on it, but also getting plenty of exercises to do to get the strength to start coming back. I’d had a plate put in my arm, with seven screws, so when that was put in, they obviously had to cut through a bit of tissue and muscle and tendons. That has its own bit of trauma to the site as well, so it’s all about just getting those muscles and tendons back stronger and up to the challenge of riding a horse.”
Two trackwork rides and five barrier trials into his return, he said he feels “pretty good actually” and is optimistic he can build on what he did last term.
“You’ve kind of just got to throw yourself in at the deep end to some extent,” Bentley continued. “I’m very happy with how the body feels.
“I’ve certainly been working on my fitness, so I feel fit, and the arm feels pretty strong, so I’m very pleased with the condition I’m in. But, this next week, with more and more barrier trials, I’m going to feel more and more comfortable because it had been ten weeks since I rode a horse. This week is important to just really get the feeling back and it’ll come back in no time at all.”
And he hopes that will put him right back in the mix to build on the steadily improving quality of horses he has been booked to ride in the past year or two.
“I had a good few horses last season that were going places,” he said. “I think Smart Golf was really good last year and unfortunately he did bleed towards the end of last season, but I still think he can bounce back and be a good horse this year. And then Elite Golf was another one who would definitely improve now he’s a little bit older because he was a very green three-year-old yet was still able to win a couple.”
Bentley knows positive connections with trainers and owners are vital if he’s to get the support which builds and maintains the sort of momentum he had last term.
“My goal is to just try and rekindle any of those relationships I had last season and try and capitalise on them,” he said.
“Everyone is in holiday mode during the summer, so I don’t keep in contact with all the trainers throughout the whole off-season but certainly towards the last couple of weeks I send out messages just saying, ‘Look, this is when I’m going to be back, I’d love to get some opportunities barrier trialing horses and whatnot.’
“You just want to be fresh in people’s minds,” he added, “and make sure they know you’re back.” ∎
