Birmingham solicitor David Billings rode his first winner on Buckshot in the Eardisland Long Distance Selling Hurdle at Hereford on Tuesday, September 13, 1977.
It was a modest two-and-a-half-mile contest with six runners, in which Mr Billings on 12-year-old Buckshot, the 13-8 favourite, took the lead at the last flight and ran on to win by a neck, beating another 12-year-old, The Lurcher, the mount of Alf Lovell.
The Birmingham Evening Mail picked up on the story a few days later and reported that when 34-year-old Mr Billings, who hailed from Alveston, in Warwickshire, was not working at his practice in Bennetts Hill, Birmingham, has was to be found riding one of his two horses, Buckshot and Night Messenger.
He told the Mail: “I never sat on a horse before May 1974. I had a few lessons on the horse I had ‘re-acquired’ from my first wife and found I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have always liked things that go a bit quick, so I decided I would have a fling at racing.”
He became acquainted with Charlie Vernon Miller, who trained at Alscot Park Stables on the outskirts of Stratford-on-Avon and bought Buckshot for the enthusiastic amateur to ride.
David began with a couple of rides on the Flat in July 1976 and then had his first ride over jumps in September that year, aboard Buckshot in an amateur riders’ hurdle at Devon & Exeter. During the spring of 1977 his other horse, Night Messenger, won a brace of novice hurdles at Ludlow and Hereford, professionally ridden by David Cartwright and Richard Evans respectively. The best David could achieve in his first season was a distant third place on Buckshot at Taunton in May.
Having obtained a licence to ride against professionals, David finished third on Buckshot on September 1, 1977, despite putting up 10lb overweight. Next time out, he duly rode his horse to victory in that Hereford selling hurdle. There was no bid for the winner after the race.
It would be nice to report that Mr Billings went on to ride more winners but, alas, that Hereford victory proved to be his sole success. Weight was always a problem – he put up no less than 21lb overweight when partnering Buckshot at Huntingdon in March 1978. Even so, he would never forget the day he won his only race, on Buckshot at Hereford in September 1977.
