There’s never a good time to be injured, but for Harry Bannister the shoulder injury he sustained at Lingfield in November came at a particularly unwelcome time, with the jumps season heading into its busiest spell and his own campaign going well. Harry was relieved when an x-ray that evening seemed to confirm that nothing was broken, but having ridden on for another week or so that came to an abrupt halt when he heard something go while tacking up. That was the start of two long and frustrating months on the sidelines, with daily visits to Oaksey House. Taking up the story he recalls: “I got an unexpected unseat in a hurdle race at the second last from Saint Palais, who is normally a very good jumper, and I landed awkwardly on my left shoulder. I knew that it was sore straight away, and although I passed the doctor I was encouraged by Richard Bandey, who trained the horse, to get an x-ray on my way home. “I went to Swindon that evening, fully prepared to be ringing Jerry Hill to tell him that it was bust, but the x-ray showed nothing and so I carried on riding in the belief that, although uncomfortably sore, it wasn’t broken. A week or so later I was riding out for Warren Greatrex and I heard it go pop while I was pulling a girth up. “I knew straight away it wasn’t great and I went straight to Oaksey House, where they organised with Jerry for me to have an MRI in London that evening. That’s when we discovered that my scapula was broken in a couple of places and the rotator cuff was torn.” From there onwards Harry was in the familiar hands of the rehab team at Oaksey House, where he was already well known from previous injuries, and he can’t thank them enough, not just for their expertise, but also for the pastoral side of their care in dealing with someone impatient to be back in the saddle. “Jerry told me that with my type of injury there is no set time to be out for and it would be very much a case of how I felt, so I probably pushed it a bit much in the early stages,” Harry admits. “I would tell them it was fine when it probably wasn’t, and to begin with the physios were doing what they would if it actually was fine. But you get found out quite quickly at Oaksey House! “I was doing as much as I could, but they could see I couldn’t really do it. To be fair, Rob Treviss, Connor Mahon, Joe Baker, Hannah Rees, Kerry Cox and Anna Fisher all did their bit, and the rest of the staff were great there too, but it was a tough old grind at that time of the season and it must be quite hard for them, listening to the likes of me moaning that I wanted to be back. “Rob has got me back from just about every injury I’ve had, so he knows pretty well what I can and can’t do. And as much as they are all there to do their individual jobs they also make good counsellors too, because there are days when you go in and your morale is low after missing a winner or whatever. It’s hard to be upbeat all the time, but besides the coaching work they all do they also work on the mental side, trying hard to keep your spirits up, and that’s a side of their work that’s often underestimated. “To start with it wasn’t really responding how I wanted and I slightly had to admit defeat and give it a bit of a chance to settle. To be honest I couldn’t really do a lot with my left arm for the first month or so, as the range of movement was so minimal. Sleeping was difficult and the strength had totally gone, but I still needed to keep the rest of my body fit so it was handy that Oaksey House was only 20 minutes from home and I could go there nearly every day.” A Compex muscle stimulator helped activate the shoulder muscles, and a Game Ready ice compression machine which he was able to take home for a couple of weeks was another big help. Harry jokes that the staff at his local Co-Op must have thought he was having party after party, the number of times he was in there to buy ice from them, yet it was still six weeks or so before the shoulder had relaxed enough for him to start getting stuck in with gym work and for the physios to be able to give it a good go. “One morning, just before Christmas, it suddenly felt a lot better, and that’s exactly how they said it would be,” says Harry, who then set his sights on first getting strong enough to ride out, and then to pass the fitness tests required before he could resume raceriding. “I was able to ride out for Warren in the morning and then go straight into Oaksey House, so it worked really well,” he adds. “Once it stopped being sore I was able to pour it on, and it recovered fairly quickly from that point. “A test you have to pass is to go three minutes, flat out, on a Wattbike, and that’s a horrendous experience. I don’t think there’s a jockey in the weighing room that doesn’t hate it, but it has to be done before you can resume and I think you invariably come back from injury fitter than you were before it happened.” Harry returned to action in mid-January at Market Rasen on an old friend, Bill Baxter, and things have gone well since. “I won on Bill Baxter at Punchestown, which was a career highlight, and it was great to come back on a horse I knew and for Warren, who along with Richard Bandey in particular has been such a support. “If you haven’t got the support of one of the ‘superyards’ of 200-odd horses, like Dan Skelton’s or Olly Murphy’s, you just have to hope you come back to the same level of support you had when you left, because other lads will have ridden winners you would have been on, but it doesn’t always work like that. Warren has been great though, and Richard Bandey has been very loyal too. I was straight back in there, which was huge for me. “It was almost like I’d never been away, and luckily Richard’s horses have been in great form. You want a winner fairly quickly of course, and you can almost try too hard in order to prove a point, but l was lucky enough to win on Icaque de L’Isle for Richard on just my fourth day back, and then I was able to relax a bit more.” There have been several more winners since and, although a good opportunity was missed on Bandey’s smart juvenile Klycot when Wetherby’s February 11 fixture was waterlogged there is plenty to look forward to again. He says: “Klycot is quite exciting and could be heading to Cheltenham for the Fred Winter, and Severana, who I’ve won twice on, qualified at Carlisle for the Mares’ Final at Newbury. She’s not done much wrong and that’s where she’s heading. “I’ve also got quite a good link up with Sara Ender in Malton. Sara hasn’t got tons of horses, but she’s really nice and she does well with what she has. A lot of her horses want good ground and she almost seems to wait for the summer to give it a real good go, which is no bad thing from my point of view as summer can be tough if you’re not Sean Bowen. It’s been quite fruitful for the pair of us.” He adds: “Jockeys in my sort of position are always just trying to get on a good one, and to be on it on the right day. That’s where I was very fortunate with Bill Baxter at Punchestown. James Bowen couldn’t do the weight and it all panned out great. It was massive for me, and great to win a good race for Warren, whom I’ve been with for 10 years or so.” Bill Baxter wasn’t the first such opportunity that Harry has taken full advantage of, and now that he’s fit again it won’t be the last. Graham Dench writing for the Injured Jockeys Fund |