George (Bill) Anderson

Article by Chris Pitt

George William Anderson was yet another of those National Hunt jockeys who lost a large chunk of their careers due to the outbreak of war.

Better known as Bill Anderson, he was apprenticed at the age of 13 at Lord Derby's Stanley House stable. He then joined George Todd’s East Ilsley stable before the war and rode unsuccessfully on the Flat in the early 1930s before taking out a jump jockey’s licence towards the end of the decade. He rode his first winner on Roundhead in a Newbury selling hurdle on New Year’s Eve 1938. But with war being declared nine months later, his priorities lay elsewhere and it would be June 1947 before he rode another.

That second success, when it finally came, was gained on Golden Labrador in a steeplechase at Newport for Upper Lambourn trainer Harry Whiteman. He rode his third winner at Newport too, albeit nearly a year later.

Winners were hard to come by. He went more than three years without one until a handicap hurdler named Master Essex, trained near Chichester by Tim Vinall, ended the drought at Lingfield in January 1952 – and he won on him again seven days later.

Having ridden just half a dozen winners during his career, Bill doubled his tally in one season when riding six in 1952/53, thanks to his association with Tim Vinall, who supplied five of them. He began with a double at Buckfastleigh in the opening week of the season, completed by chaser Windsor Light – who then won his next two starts – and ended it with another double, this time on the Saturday of Plumpton’s 1953 Easter meeting.

However, any hopes of that being the catalyst for better things proved to be a false dawn. He rode just one more winner, dead-heating for first place on Mariner’s Call in the Elmstead Handicap Chase at Wye on May 12, 1954.

He died, aged 88, in October 2001, and was buried at Worthing Crematorium.

George Anderson’s 13 winners were, in chronological order:

1. Roundhead, Newbury, December 31, 1938

2. Golden Labrador, Newport, June 14, 1947

3. Cheveley Light, Newport, May 17, 1948

4. Benburb, Fontwell Park, October 11, 1948

5. Master Essex, Lingfield Park, January 12, 1952

6. Master Essex, Sandown Park, January 19, 1952

7. Porlock Folly, Buckfastleigh, August 9, 1952

8. Windsor Light, Buckfastleigh, August 9, 1952

9. Windsor Light, Wincanton, September 18, 1952

10. Windsor Light, Plumpton, September 22, 1952

11. Master Essex, Plumpton, April 4, 1953

12. Tour Du Monde, Plumpton, April 4, 1953

13. Mariner’s Call, Wye, May 17, 1954