Battered Beswick in good spirits despite worst fall since skateboarding days

Harry Beswick is facing a spell on the sidelines after suffering multiple injuries in a crunching fall at Sedgefield – one the promising conditional reckons is the worst he has had since giving up skateboarding for horse riding.

Beswick, who is attached to Oliver Sherwood's Lambourn yard, was riding Dancing Doug for Sam Thomas in Sedgefield's bumper on Friday when the well-regarded four-year-old slipped on the bend three furlongs out.

He was reported to be fine by Thomas, but Beswick was not so lucky, although his spirits remained high on Saturday.

Speaking from his bed in the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, the 22-year-old said: "I had the mother and father of falls and there's a bit of concussion there and I've fractured my leg, broken my hip, got a compressed vertebrae and a broken nose – it was a nasty old slap really.

"Hopefully I'll be out for just a few weeks, but we'll have to see what happens. I'm just waiting for things to settle down and see what the doctors say."

Beswick, who enjoyed a memorable day in January when riding a double at Uttoxeter, has been comforted by his father John but his memories of the spill are foggy.

"I don't remember a single thing," continued the 7lb claimer, who spent the summer riding in France.

"I woke up in hospital and wondered what the hell I was doing here. I saw the replay back and thought, 'Bloody hell, poor bugger' as Dancing Doug had an awful fall and is a nice little horse.

"Sedgefield is quite a trappy course and he'd had his first run at Southwell, where you've got loads of time and it's more galloping. Sedgefield's quite hilly too, which probably didn't help."

He added: "It would be the worst fall I've had since finishing skateboarding. Falling off a skateboard, you've just yourself to worry about, but falling off a horse there are a few other variables – we had a right kicking from the oncoming horses, but I'm on the mend and in good hands."

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