Dinner with Dick Francis

Francis’s books were all set in the world of horse racing, but he did not use the same detective character over and over as is most common in mystery publishing. He wrote about jockeys and wine merchants and breeders and the great variety of people connected to racing.

- J. Madison Davis

When I was a newly minted assistant professor, Twayne’s English Author Series contracted me to write an analysis of the Dick Francis novels. The only Francis novel I had read at that point had been enjoyable. The main character was a world-weary jockey coming to the end of his career, being pressured to fix races, and, despite threats, unwilling to do so. The hero was beaten up at least once, and his pain was described in a way that made me wince.

His publishing, I learned, had begun with a memoir of his own career as a champion steeplechase jockey, ultimately in the employ of the Queen Mother. He was approached to do the memoir after he retired because in his last year of racing a strange event occurred riding the Queen Mother’s horse in the Grand National. The horse, Devon Loch, was hugely talented and popular, but, for reasons that sportsmen argued about for years and could never settle, Devon Loch rounded the turn far in the lead and, as it thundered toward the finish line, abruptly spread its legs and stopped. No one knew why. It was said that some horses have been thought to see imaginary fences pop up in front of them. Francis believed that the roar of the crowd was so intense that the horse panicked. In any case, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. It was an odd ending to a great career: many years as a champion jockey, but never winner of the Grand National.