British Jockey Turned Best-Selling Author Dies at 89
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FEATURES TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010 Dick Francis, champion British jockey turned best-selling author dies at 89 Despite scant schooling, when Dick Francis hung up his saddle as a jump jockey, he turned his hand to producing hugely successful racing thrillers BY StaNLey ReyNOLds THE GUARDIAN, LONDON Below: In this March 24, 1956 file photo, Dick Francis jumps Queen Mother Elizabeth’s Devon Loch over the feared Becher’s Brook, during the Grand National Handicap Steeplechase, at Aintree, England. PHOTOS: AP already done it in the saddling enclosure. said this was untrue. no love of horses or racing. The story goes of the reader. Only Sid Halley, an injured There was no question of Francis, like a Francis was not a particularly good that Dick and Mary went to see a murder jockey turned detective, makes repeat crooked jockey out of one of his own books, tipster, but he was rather brave in his mystery at the Oxford Playhouse and came appearances, in Odds Against (1965), Whip having pulled the horse. It had been his great attacks on the Jockey Club and the toffs away thinking they could do better. Be that Hand (1979) and Come to Grief (1995). The dream since he was a lad of eight in 1928 of racing. He continued this in his thrillers. as it may, Dick produced Dead Cert and gave Francis tales are told in the first person, and and listened to the Grand National on the But his years at the Sunday Express did not it to Michael Joseph because he had ridden the hero/narrator, whether an ill-educated radio as Tipperary Tim won at 100-1, to be make him love Fleet Street, and journalists horses for the publisher. jockey or the son of an earl — Lord Henry a steeplechase jockey and win that ultimate were usually low, dishonest characters in It is said that originally Francis wanted Grey in Flying Finish (1966) — were always prize. Ironically, Devon Loch’s melodramatic his books. Mary’s name on the book as co-author, but the same upstanding character, all men collapse in front of a roaring crowd cheering The queen mother, though, was a fan of his it was thought better business sense to have with a secret sorrow. When asked about him to the finish has ensured Francis a place books. He always got a special first edition to only Dick’s. In his excellent unauthorized his damaged heroes, Francis, in a rather in the history of the race he would not have her, and said he did not put in the usual sex autobiography, Dick Francis: A Racing Life marvelous throwaway line, said he had “to had if he had been merely another winner. and bad language of the genre because he (1999), Graham Lord produces some telling have something to fill up the pages.” Francis was champion jockey in the 1953 knew the queen mother would be reading it; circumstantial evidence that Dick could not The plots, too, ran to a formula. Some to 1954 season. He rode the queen’s horses she did once complain about the violence. have written the books without Mary. It was reviewers protested that racing could not be ick Francis, who died on Sunday aged for Cazalet, the royal trainer, from 1953 Born at Coedcanlas Farm in the village always acknowledged that she did much as crooked as depicted in the Francis novels, 89, was a unique figure — a champion until 1957. Some said he always rode like an of Lawrenny, Pembrokeshire, southwest of the research for him, but Lord seemed but real life (as in the case of the Shergar D steeplechase jockey who, without any amateur, and failed to have a really strong Wales, Francis came from a line of farming to think it went further than that. The kidnapping) came in to prove how realistic previous apparent literary bent, became an finish. He had indeed started as an amateur, gentry and horsemen. His father was a show speculation may have arisen because Mary his stories were. international best-selling writer, the author going professional in 1948, but he was a rider and manager of hunting stables, his was a well-educated woman with a degree As well as the thrillers, he wrote his auto- of 42 crime novels, selling more than 60 masterful rider and a perfect size for a jump grandfather a farmer and gentleman jockey. in French and English Literature from Royal biography, The Sport of Queens (1957), and million copies in 35 languages. Right from jockey, 1.72m and 63.5kg. Only the great Fred Uncles on both sides of his family were Holloway College, London University. What Lester (1986), a biography of Lester Piggott. the start, with Dead Cert in 1962, the Dick Winter was a better chase jockey. Masters of Foxhounds. The family home was is clear about the thrillers is that whoever Francis became immensely rich. Because Francis thriller showed a mastery of lean, In 1957 the queen mother sacked him. a beautiful old farmhouse but it had neither wrote them had a wide knowledge of the of Mary’s poor health — she had suffered witty genre prose reminiscent — sometimes The Marquess of Abergavenny, racing gas nor electricity and was lit by candlelight. American tough-guy school of detective from polio — and his many injuries, they fled to the point of comic parody — of Raymond administrator and friend of the queen He went to a one-class village school, fiction. Here a knowledge of French English winters for Florida and then Grand Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. It was an mother, summoned Francis to his flat near attending on average only three days a week literature would seem to be no help. The fact Cayman in the British West Indies. Although American style that many clever people in Hyde Park and told him it was time to and riding the rest of the time, until the that when highbrow interviewers spoke of surrounded by the super-rich, they continued England had attempted to reproduce without stop racing. He suggested that Francis had family moved to Maidenhead in Berkshire, formalism and hermeneutics Dick did not a rather suburban lifestyle, and each year much success, and it was a wonder how a suffered too many injuries in falls — he had England, where his father was manager of know what they were talking about proves returned to the Radcliffe hotel in Paignton, barely educated former jump jockey was dislocated his shoulder so many times that he a stable. Dick went to Maidenhead county nothing. Hammett and Chandler would England, for a family holiday. Mary died able to do the trick with such effortless ease. had to be permanently strapped for the rest boys’ school, but his attendance was no probably not have known either. in 2000. Their two sons said they worked People said his highly educated wife wrote of his life — and should quit while he was better and he left at 15 to work for his father. Dick and Mary had a very close and happy together “like Siamese twins conjoined at the the books for him. It was a mystery that was ahead. Francis was shattered by this oblique At one time it was suggested that he should marriage, spending seven months of the year pencil.” As neither Dick nor Mary could type, never satisfactorily solved. dismissal by the queen mother, for whom he drink gin to keep him from growing so he traveling and researching, and five months perhaps there will be manuscripts among The most dramatic incident in his racing had a rather old-fashioned reverence. could become a flat jockey, but his love was writing the novels. Once Francis was under Dick Francis’s effects that will show which career was also a mystery. In the Grand He asked what he was to do for a living. steeplechasing. He was also a successful way, a book appeared every year in time for one was the prime mover. National at Aintree in 1956, his mount Devon The marquess said something always turned show rider. Christmas. They were all best-sellers, both After her death in 2000, when no new Loch, Queen Mother Elizabeth’s horse up. Francis had wept when Devon Loch fell When World War II came, he joined the in Britain and the US. By the end, in Britain crime novels appeared, it looked as if Mary trained by Peter Cazalet, had jumped all and he wept again, walking away through RAF as an aircraftman and served in the alone each new book would sell 100,000 in might have written them. But then, six years the fences and, well ahead, only 45m Hyde Park. “I nearly flung myself into the Western Desert before going to pilot training hardback and 500,000 in paperback. Francis later, Francis came out of retirement to from the finish, without another horse near Serpentine, I was so depressed,” he said, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He never won several gold and silver dagger awards produce Under Orders, which had all the him, suddenly collapsed and was unable years later. flew in combat, but he was a Spitfire and from the Crime Writers’ Association and old Francis flavor. The next year, 2007, he to continue. He wrote a racing column for the Sunday Hurricane pilot before being transferred to was given the Cartier Diamond Dagger for published Dead Heat, then Silks (2008) and Some said the horse had attempted to Express, but it paid only US$31 a week, heavy bombers. His lack of schooling gave outstanding contribution to the genre.