to think of richard davis once more.

​I remember picking up Sean Magee’s book ‘To Win Just Once’ in Waterstones when it first came out. It was like holding a grenade without its pin. I perused the preface, until confronted by my own name I had no alternative but to replace it on the shelf and leave the store, a guilt that still holds sway over me directing my irrational response.
To be less melodramatic.
Sean Magee would never have written ‘To Win Just Once’ if it was not for me. Fact, not a boast. I am sure the author would not take issue with the statement. Richard Davis, to whom Sean’s book is dedicated, died July 19th, 1996. During the summer and early autumn of 1995 Richard came to Upleadon Farm, where I was then working as a dairyman, to exercise a horse owned by a friend that was at livery there. Upleadon Farm is the family home of the Biddlecombes and I worked for Tony, a former champion amateur jockey and brother of the more famous Terry.
I put the idea to Richard that the racing public might be interested in learning about the ups and downs of a jockey, what has become termed ‘journeyman jockey’, who is not retained by a big stable and riding in all the top races. I told him I only ‘dabbled’ with writing and that I could not make any bold predictions about whether the book would ever be published. Ironically today, with e-book publishing and publish-on-demand I could have promised publication as I could easily self-publish. Anyway, due to the uncertainty of publication I wanted to make the process as less time-consuming for Richard as possible and we agreed he would provide his ‘journal’ in audio form which I would transcribe.
Richard was a humble chap and I don’t think in the first instance he really bought into the idea. To begin with the tapes regularly appeared but after a period of time they became less regular. I now know why. Or suspect I do.
The idea of the book was that Richard’s journal would be interspersed with chapters written by me about the general racing scene.
To return to ‘To Win Just Once’. In the preface, after Sean gives the reader a reminder of the main news of July 19th, there is a paragraph which when I read it a few days ago I found rather upsetting. ‘Four days earlier, on the Monday of that week, I had had lunch with Richard Davis at The Plough in Ford ….. We had been discussing a book project we were cooking up: to work together through the coming season to describe the ups and downs of the life of the ‘ordinary’ jump jockey.’
He goes on to say that would be building on foundations laid in the diary Richard had been keeping the previous season in collaboration with his neighbour. I was that collaborator, though not his neighbour as we lived in different counties. Journalistic licence, I suppose.
I was under the impression, you see, that Richard had told no one about ‘our project’, certainly no one in his family or his friends who contacted me in the aftermath of his death knew of it. Maybe no one also knew of his collaboration with Sean.
You must forgive me but my memory is pretty dire these days and I cannot remember if I gave a copy of my manuscript to Richard’s family and they passed it on to Sean or whether he wrote to me requesting a copy. I vaguely remember having his address written down somewhere. I also wrote a letter of condolence, I suppose, to the Racing Post and they in return asked to publish an excerpt, which I agreed to, selecting a few pages that showed more of Richard’s good character than my scribblings.
Eventually, as it was quite obvious no one in racing or publishing was prepared to help ‘our’ book see the light of day, I agreed to meet Sean at the home of Richard’s parents. Thinking back, as is forced upon me by writing this piece, I remember him emphasising the need to put ‘mud on the page’ – to give the book a hook to hang publicity on, I suppose – though I see no ‘mud’ in the book he ended up writing with help from Guy Lewis, one of Richard’s closest friends. I doubt if I said at the time, but wouldn’t the horrible fact that Richard died during the writing process be an adequate amount of ‘mud’?
I could have been obstinate and insisted it was ‘my book or no book’ but that isn’t who I am. I had enjoyed writing the book and I am pleased and honoured to have met Richard, and a little bit happy to have met Sean, who I bear no animosity to, and in the drawer of my desk I have a copy of the manuscript, proof of all I claim. And my only real concern was for the Davis family and that Richard was given a fitting memorial. So, I withdrew and allowed Sean, who after all could promise publication, to fulfil a task that was beyond my means.
I am not one to blow my own trumpet, even if I possessed a trumpet to blow, but I think my book, the pattern of which ‘To Win Just Once’ is a near carbon copy, is the more readable of the two. I think I was far more on Richard’s side than Sean was on Guy’s. But then I would think that, wouldn’t I?
And: I know one fact about Richard that is not mentioned in Sean’s book and if you were to buy a copy of my self-published collection of horse racing short stories ‘Going To The Last’ and read the story ‘Second Consideration’ you might figure out what that fact is.
Richard’s death had a huge effect on me, the echoes of which still stall me as both a writer and a human being. Every facet of my brief association with Richard was beyond my control. As ‘the writer’ I should have taken control of the process instead of giving Richard free rein to supply me with what he considered appropriate. After his death I could not bring to fruition something I was desperate to achieve – to make good a promise I had not made, for his sake, for the sake of his family. All through I felt like a very small fish in a shark-infested huge ocean. It remains the way I feel today. But then again, I live to write again.