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R.I.P. Dick Francis, Jockey and Famous Mystery Writer, Dead at 89

A slight departure from the norm this week, if you’ll bear with me.

A legend (literary) passed away this week. Someone who was so closely aligned to the horse racing world that I thought it absolutely appropriate to talk about it in this forum.

Dick Francis was indeed  a champion steeplechase jockey for the British royal family and did achieve fame in that regard.

Far greater was his fame as a writer.

He died at 89, on Sunday in the Cayman Islands, where he lived.

He wrote more than 40 novels, mostly bestsellers, mostly set in the heady world of high class horse racing.

He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America three times and was made a grand master, the group’s highest honor, in 1996.

“I never really decided to be a writer,” he wrote in his autobiography, “The Sport of Queens,” “I just sort of drifted into it.”

We’re all glad he did.

We’ll all remember his hero, Sid Halley…. created by Dick Francis.

Rest in Peace man.

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