Bill Anderson
1910-1999
William James (Bill) Anderson was born on 1 April 1910. He rode in France before returning to Britain in the immediate post-war years to ride for Bill Wightman, who trained at Bishops Waltham. He rode his first winner for Wightman on S.E.A.C. in the Russell Nursery Handicap Stakes, a two-year-old seller, at Windsor on 13 November 1947.
Having drawn a blank in 1948, Bill rode one winner from 63 rides in 1949, that being 20-1 shot Rockaway, trained by Wightman, in a massive 41-horse field for the November Nursery Handicap at Lingfield Park, the penultimate race on the last day of the season, 19 November.
In 1950 he had two wins from 52 rides. The first was the Wightman-trained Ben Moor II in the Ladas Handicap at Epsom on Bank Holiday Monday 7 August. The second came the very next day on Wild Chancellor for Compton trainer Ken Cundell in the Brighton Three-Year-Old Handicap at that Sussex venue.
He failed to register a victory in either 1951 or 1952 but rode what proved to be his final winner aboard 10-1 chance Legal Cover, owned and trained by Gerald Laurence, in the Blathway Two-Year-Old Selling Plate at Bath on 14 May 1953.
Despite continuing to hold a licence until 1959 and for one more season in 1961, he had no further successes, however, he did get to ride 100-1 outsider Kingsloe in the 1954 Derby, finishing fourteenth of twenty-two, having been slowly away, behind Never Say Die and eighteen-year-old Lester Piggott.
He had one of his last rides in public when finishing unplaced on Tataramoa in the Wray Maiden Plate at Lingfield Park on 13 May 1961, by which time he was 51 years old.
Bill Anderson spent his retirement in the Southampton area. He died in the early part of 1999, aged 89.
