New experience for English jockey Bentley

ARCADIA, Calif. – When the English jockey Harry Bentley stepped off the plane Sunday at LAX, it was onto terra incognita. Not only has Bentley never ridden a race in this country, he had not even been here until this week.

Bentley rides Limato on Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, and it is fair to wonder if a young English rider will be disadvantaged at Santa Anita, which has a turf course unlike any in Europe. But Bentley has riding experience far beyond Europe that might help compensate for his lack of familiarity with North American-style racing.

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The 24-year-old Bentley began riding professionally at 17 and during the winter has been based in the Middle East for six years as the retained rider to Sheikh Fahad bin Khalifa al Thani, part of Qatar’s ruling family. Bentley rides in Dubai and flies to Qatar to ride at Rayyan Racecourse, the nation’s only track, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In fact, he is due to begin the fall-winter-spring phase of his season next week in Dubai.

Bentley has been the champion jockey three years in a row in Qatar, but more pertinent to his ride on Limato in the Mile, Rayyan is a fairly tight, flat, oval course.

“It’s right-handed but otherwise not too dissimilar from Santa Anita, really,” he said. “There’s a very short run-up into the turn, and it definitely favors a front-runner. I’ve probably had 1,000 rides there, and I think I ride a tight track pretty well.”

Bentley also has ample experience at Meydan in Dubai, where racing is flat, oval, and left-handed, though on a bigger course than Santa Anita’s. Unable to secure a mount Thursday and Friday, Bentley has galloped two horses this week for trainer Richard Mandella to get a sense of the racetrack here.

“It’s obviously much different in the morning here than in England,” he said. “Organized chaos.”

Bentley is on a live mount, and he said that Limato, trained by Henry Candy, had taken his long trip well. Limato is the top six- to seven-furlong horse in Europe this year, and the main question regarding the Mile is whether he can stay the trip.

“Having seen the track, if he’s going to get the mile anywhere, it’s probably going to be here,” Bentley said.