He was natural Richard Stanley Francis within Lawrenny, south Wales. the boy of a jockey, he had the successful career himself as a jockey, winning concluded 350 races.

When you took World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force piloting fighter and bomber aircraft including a Spitfire. He left the RAF around 1946 to get a celebrity in the globe of British National Hunt racing.

From either 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. He wwhen forced to retire from either racing as the effect of a good fall around 1957. His best known moment as a jockey come when riding a Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National: a horse inexplicably fell whilst some winning the race.

His 1st book was his autobiography, The Sport of Queens (1957), which led to him becoming the racing correspondent for the London Sunday Express, the position he held for Sixteen years. Inside 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, which was placed in the globe of racing. Later on, he regularly produced the novel the season for the next 38 years, missing simply 1998 (when you took which year he published a short-story collection). Although completely his books were placed against the background of horseracing, his heroes held the kind of jobs, from either creative person (To the limit) to personal investigator (Odds Against).

He was mass produced an Officer of the virtually all noble Order of the British Empire in 1984.

A 1999 wildcat life history, Dick Francis: The Racing Life, suggested that his books got inside fact been written by Mary, Dick Francis' married woman. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/482502.stm] Whether this is confessedly or even non, by a lot accounts Mary did very much of the locate & redaction of Francis' late novels & stories, & typically worked collaboratively using her married man in both book's actual composition. Dick Francis himself wrote there are no fresh works fallowing Mary's demise in the season 2000.

Books
A Sport of Queens (1957) Dead Cert (1962) Nerve (1964) For Kicks (1965) Odds Against (1965) Flight Finish (1966) Blood Sport (1967) Forfeit (1968) Enquiry (1969) Rat Race (1970) Bonecrack (1971) Smokescreen (1972) Slayride (1973) Knockdown (1974) High Stakes (1975) In the Frame (1976) Chance (1977) Tryout (1978) Upper hand (1979) Physiological reaction (1980) Twice Shy (1981) Banker (1982) A Danger (1983) Proof (1984) Break Inside (1985) Bolt (1986) Hot Money (1987) A Edge (1988) Straight (1989) Longshot (1990) Comeback (1991) Drive (1992) Decider (1993) Untamed Horses (1994) Came to Grief (1995) To the limit (1996) Decade LB. Penalty (1997) Field of Thirteen (1998) - short stories 1. Raid at Kingdom Hill (A rape of Kingdom Hill/The race at Kingdom Hill) 2. Dead in red 3. Song for Mona 4. Brightly whiten star 5. Collision course 6. Nightmare (Nightmares) Nattmara 7. Carrot for the chestnut 8. The gift (A day of wine & roses/The large story) 9. Spring fever 10. Blind risk (Twenty-21 effective men & avowedly) 11. Corkscrew 12. A day of the losers 13. Haig's death 2nd Wind (1999) Tattered (2000)