HARRY Coffey’s back from his broken bone, and he broke straight back into the winner’s circle at the weekend.
On Saturday, the Swan Hill hoop headed downstream to Mildura for his first ride in weeks after fracturing his scaphoid bone during the Swan Hill Cup Carnival back in June – and took out the first race on Zebedee Springs for Patrick Payne in the $27,000 Malle Big Screen Plate over 1112m.
On Sunday, he did a 180 and headed upstream to Echuca where he took out the first two races on the card – the first on Ciaron Maher’s Navy Heart and the second, a pick-up ride, on Henry Dwyer’s Flying Celica.
In other words, Harry’s back.
After racking up 81 winners – including another Group 1 – during the 2023-24 racing season, the talented 28-year-old knew he had damaged his hand on the day before the cup itself; but didn’t realise how badly.
Condemning him to almost two months out of the saddle as he needed surgery and a lot of time to overcome what is recognised as one of the most difficult breaks to have.
Speaking post-race after his first win at Echuca, Coffey described his injury “as a bit of a funny thing”.
He said every footballer he bumped into around Swan Hill while he waited for his wrist to heal told him “you’ll be buggered for the rest of your life”.
“So that was really nice, to hit the ground running and get some confidence about your recovery,” Coffey laughs.
“It’s a fiddly little bone in your wrist I fractured when I was dislodged after the finish line on the Saturday at the Swan Hill carnival.
“I originally thought I had a sprained wrist and pushed on trying to win the Swan Hill Cup the next day and unfortunately ran second, and was taping it up in the rooms and trying to be tough.
“But it got the better of me after a couple of cold mornings doing track work at Ballarat so I went into it a little bit more.”
Coffey thanks the Racing Victoria medical team, and “a special thank you today for Dr Ben Barresi, who has a small share in this horse and when I got the ride on it I assumed the wrist was pretty good to go because he knows best”.
Scaphoid fractures are a type of broken wrist. They happen when you break your scaphoid bone – a small bone near the base of your thumb. You might need surgery, but even if you do, you should make a full recovery. People usually need around three months to heal from a scaphoid fracture.
Because parts of the scaphoid have a poor blood supply – and a fracture can further disrupt (slow or stop) the flow of blood to the bone – complications with the healing process are more common in scaphoid fractures than in fractures of other bones.
