It has been a successful start to the year for Harry Bentley and the British rider heads to Sha Tin’s all-weather card on Wednesday hoping his hard work can continue to pay off.

After claiming four wins since returning from suspension on January 4 – headlined by his first Group success in Hong Kong aboard Whizz Kid in the Bauhinia Sprint Trophy (1,000m) – Bentley is feeding off his recent run of results.

“I feel like I’m in good form and having a few nice results recently is a good boost to the confidence,” Bentley said. “I feel great in myself and I just want to springboard on from what I’m getting and keep it going.”

The 31-year-old rider takes a five-strong book to Wednesday’s eight-race meeting and has the benefit of an inside draw aboard Mr Ascendency in the Class Two Egret Handicap (1,650m).

A winner on the Polytrack in his pre-import career in the United Kingdom, Mr Ascendency has two victories to his name for the Ricky Yiu Poon-fai stable and is set to make his first appearance on the dirt in Hong Kong.

“There is a question mark whether the surface is going to be suitable for him in the race, but he’s trialled on it and he moved fine on the surface,” Bentley said. “There’s no reason it won’t suit him and he ran a big race last time.”

Settled towards the rear of the field in the Class Two Butterfly Handicap (1,600m) earlier this month, Mr Ascendency kept on well in the closing stages to finish fourth behind impressive winner Helios Express.

“He ran a really decent race and it was almost back to his former glory showing what he can do,” Bentley said. “It will be interesting to see him on the surface for the first time in a race, but I’m not worried about it at all.”

Bentley sits on 11 wins for the season from only 111 rides – a strike rate that places him comfortably in the upper echelon of the jockey ranks – and he will bid to add to his tally atop Winning Steps in the opening race on the card, the Class Four Spoonbill Handicap (1,800m).

Returning to the distance of his sole career success in March’s Class Four Lok Sin Tong Cup (1,800m) on the turf, Winning Steps will switch to the dirt in an attempt to build on an encouraging seventh over the Sha Tin turf mile on January 13.

“He’s a horse that I rode early on in his career and he definitely stays, so this step up in distance is good,” Bentley said. “He ran a big race last time from a bad draw, he was able to make up some good late ground. Hopefully, he can put it all together on Wednesday.”

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While Winning Steps has had plenty of experience on the dirt during his preparation, the Pierre Ng Pang-chi-trained five-year-old’s only all-weather run came on debut in December 2022.

The son of Pierro hit the line with plenty of conviction to finish fourth on that occasion, and Bentley believes the transition from turf to dirt will not pose any problems.

“I don’t think [the dirt] is an issue and I think he should be running a nice race,” Bentley said. “He’s training on it every day and he didn’t seem to have any issue on it early in his career.”