Final chapter...Dick Francis, great jumps jockey and best-selling author of racing crime novels, has died at 89. He retired from riding in 1957 to begin his writing career with his autobiography The Sport Of Queens before turning his hand to fiction. The author centred all of his 42 novels around the racing industry in the UK. Dick is rfemembered as the jockey who rode the Queen Mother's jumper Devon Loch in the 1956 UK Grand National. Devon Loch had the race sewn up but for some unknown reason

Final chapter...Dick Francis, great jumps jockey and best-selling author of racing crime novels, has died at 89. He retired from riding in 1957 to begin his writing career with his autobiography The Sport Of Queens before turning his hand to fiction. The author centred all of his 42 novels around the racing industry in the UK. Dick is rfemembered as the jockey who rode the Queen Mother's jumper Devon Loch in the 1956 UK Grand National. Devon Loch had the race sewn up but for some unknown reason seemed to slip and spreadeagle himself on the run-in to the finish.