SOURCE: "Champion Rider to Champion Writer," in The Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1990, pp. 1, 2.

In the following essay, Killian describes Francis's life and careers as both a steeplechase jockey and a writer.

Dick Francis no longer needs to ride a horse.

He has just issued Longshot, his 29th novel and 31st book, and, like previous Francis works, it is being displayed on the best-seller shelves of the nation's bookstores. This puts it in a league with Straight, his novel of last year, and The Edge, released the year before that.

In January, he'll begin his next one, and a year from now the bookstores very likely will be making a lot of shelf room for that one too.

It's hard to think of a more celebrated and avidly read mystery writer in Francis' adoptive United States or his native England. But he used to ride horses quite a lot, and...