Born at Chipping Norton on February 17, 1949, David John Atkinson was a typical journeyman jockey. He served his apprenticeship from 1963 to 1968 with Arthur Budgett at Whatcombe, signing on for another two years at its end.
He rode his first winner on Friday, August 12, 1966, at Newbury on Polish Warrior, the 9/2 winner of the New Boys Apprentice Handicap Plate. Later that season he won an apprentice handicap at Ascot on Crossbow.
Both horses were trained by Arthur Budgett.
Having drawn a blank in 1967, he had just a solitary winner in 1968, a two-year-old named Party Man at Windsor in October.
Winners were never plentiful, his tally of four in 1969, all for Arthur Budgett and all within the space of a month, being as good as it got. They were:
Party Man, Salisbury, August 13
Polar Venture, Goodwood, August 29
Baytree, Bath, September 6
Milveagh, Salisbury, September 11
He rode two winners in 1970, both in apprentice races and both trained by Arthur Budgett, on Party Man at Sandown in May and Empress of Britain at Lingfield in October. Earlier that year he had married Beatrice Anne Wilson on February 21, 1970. She gave him a daughter, Miranda Jane.
David, who enjoyed a game of golf and was a keen swimmer and collector of old coins, had lived at Charlton Heights, Wantage during his time with Arthur Budgett. However, having completed his apprenticeship in 1972, he moved to Great Shefford and began riding for Nicky Vigors, who trained at Upper Lambourn. Riding as a fully-fledged jockey, he partnered two winners for Vigors in 1974. There was just one in 1975, Vigors’ juvenile Native King who made a winning debut at Wolverhampton in April.
He subsequently joined the nomadic Rod Simpson, who was then training at Sutton Courtenay, in Oxfordshire, and rode three winners for him in 1980, including a pair of five-furlong contests at Chester on a two-year-old filly named Hello Susie Greene.
While continuing to hold a licence until 1984, David spent most of the next few years riding overseas, principally in Saudi Arabia. He returned to Britain and worked for a year at Sun Willow Stud, but the pull of the turf at the sharp end lured him back to Whatcombe in 1987 to ride for Paul Cole.
He returned from the wilderness to ride his first British winner for seven years when True Fact landed the Kelston Graduation Stakes at Bath on June 13, 1987. It was a case of going back to his roots, having done his time with Arthur Budgett and now it was Paul Cole, the latest incumbent at Whatcombe, who provided his comeback win.
David rode three more winners for Cole that year: Royal Astronaut obliged at Chester on June 24; Glory Line won the long-established Kenneth Robertson Handicap at Bath on July 4; and finally, a three-your-old filly named Working Model landed the Reading Maiden Stakes at Newbury on October 22.
Those proved to be David’s last winners, as he failed to trouble the judge in 1988, his final season with a licence.
