HAPPY KENTUCKY DERBY DAY - and a tip of the hard hat to Dick Francis

I grew up riding horses and have a fractured L4 because of my daring-do jumping skills. Throw in a little arthritis on creaky days and there goes my golf game.

All that to admit I loved reading Dick Francis after mucking out the stable. ;-D

In honor of KDD, I'm reading NERVE about a jockey who seems to have lost his nerve. OR, could it be someone is sabotaging him through his mounts?

From 1953 to 1957 Francis was jockey to Queen Elizabeth's Queen Mother. He retired after he rode Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National race. The horse fell near the finish line. Francis wrote over 40 international best sellers before he died on February 14, 2010.

His work lives on because of his collaboration with youngest son, Felix Francis, a physics teacher who retired to research for his father and now continues the horse racing series.

Gerrie Ferris Finger

THE END GAME

THE LAST TEMPTATION due out 2012

THE GHOST SHIP, June 2011

HONORED DAUGHTERS

WHEN SERPENTS DIE

WAGON DOGS

http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

http://crimewritersblog.blogspot.com/

DICK FRANCIS - RIP

In the last six months we lost several authors, one is Dick Francis, famous for his horse-racing novels. He was 89.

I started reading Francis's novels when I was a teenager. I grew up on a farm with horses and sundry other animals. Horse became my passion. Horses and writing. So, of course, Dick Francis was my guy. I never raced a horse, except against my brother, and I had the faster horses. He had cutting and roping quarter horses, while I went for the walkers and Thoroughbreds, English saddle style.

Many years later, my jumping days ended when I went off the back of a 17-hand hunter-jumper. Broke L-4 and my back will never let me forget it.

That's me. I've written a few mysteries - romantic suspense and traditional, nothing compared to my favorite novelist those many years ago. Along the way, I became and journalist and had to stick to facts.

A champion jockey in the 1940s and 1950s, he retired to write over 40 best-sellers, starting with Dead Cert. I'll never forget that book. How could I? I must have read it ten times in as many years.

His awards are numerous and he became a CBE.

Rest your soul, Dick Francis. You've contributed mightily to the mystery-reading community.