"Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon.  However, three in one afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than an eyebrow."

It’s the third death that really troubles former champion jump-jockey Sid Halley. He knows the perils of racing all too well – but in his day, jockeys didn’t usually reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest. But this is precisely how he finds Huw Walker – the new winner of the Triumph Hurdle and Halley’s friend.  Now former friend.
Walker was riding one of Lord Enstone’s horses in the Hurdle and it was the inimitable owner who invited Halley in the first place. His brief: to make discrete enquiries into alleged race fixing. Are results being rigged? Are bookies taking a cut? And if so, are trainers and jockeys playing a dangerous game with stakes far higher than they realise …

Halley’s quest for answers draws him ever deeper into the darker side of the race game, in a life-or-death power-play that will push him to his very limits – both professionally and personally.

A Return to Racing - a piece by Dick Francis

In August 2000, as I approached my eightieth birthday, Mary, my wife, and I decided that after 38 novels, a collection of short stories and two biographies, it was time to call it a day and retire from writing.

Mary and I had always worked on the books together. She was brilliant at the research and had the uncanny knack of asking the right questions to get the information we needed. She learnt all sorts of new skills in the pursuit of knowledge for the stories; she became a pilot for Flying Finish and Rat Race; she took up photography for Reflex and painting for In The Frame. We would discuss the plot every night and she would read through the pages and polish the prose. And so it had been for nearly forty years with a new book every autumn. Now it was time for a rest. But sadly, just a month after we took the decision, Mary suddenly died. Our rest in retirement together was non existent and I was left alone.

It was not a happy time for me and, despite the best intentions of my family and friends, I was suddenly very lonely. They say that time cures, and it does in so far that the raw pain of grief slowly diminishes, but time alone does not heal the hole that exists in the heart, the void that can only be filled by the presence of someone you love. Then, in April last year I was invited to speak at an event in Maryland and to attend the Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase. I was a house guest of Charlie Fenwick, the American jockey who won the Grand National on Ben Nevis in 1980. Another of his guests was a lady from Virginia called Dagmar Cosby. We had a wonderful weekend in spite of the incessant rain and, for the first time in sixty years, I fell in love. At last, the void was closed.

Felix, my younger son, had tried often to get me to agree to write another book. He said that he would do the research and act for me in the way that his mother had done. Finally, with my life now more complete again, I agreed, and the result is Under Orders, the first Dick Francis novel for six years and one that many people, including me, thought would never be.

Felix and I have greatly enjoyed producing Under Orders. In this story I return to the racecourse and the current steeplechasing scene. My character Sid Halley returns after an eleven year absence (but he’s not much older than he was when he first appeared in Odds Against in 1965). This is the fourth Dick Francis novel in which Sid Halley, the one handed ex-jockey turned private detective, is the main character.

In Under Orders, Sid is asked to investigate the murder of a top steeplechase jockey, gunned down in broad daylight during the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Was the killing something to do with race fixing or is there some other explanation?

Someone once asked me why I always write books about horses. I replied that I don’t; I write books about people. Horses may always be in there somewhere but it is the people who act out the story on the page; it is the people who provide the characterisation; and it is the people who are the goodies and the baddies. The horses and the racing world merely act as the canvas upon which the story is drawn. To say that Dick Francis novels are all about horses is like saying that Gone With The Wind is all about the American Civil War, or Billy Elliot is all about the miners’ strike.

The following are two short extracts from the early chapters of Under Orders. Just to whet your appetite...

At Cheltenham Races on Gold Cup day:

I watched the first race from the Owners and Trainers Stand. The Triumph Hurdle is the blue riband event for four-year-old novice hurdlers over a distance of two miles and a furlong. The start was impressive as the twenty-five runners spread right across the course, resembling a cavalry charge to the first flight of hurdles. I found that I was paying particular attention to Huw Walker on Candlestick. The runners were still bunched together as they galloped fast past the grandstand for the first time. The climb to the highest point of the course began to sort them out and there were only half a dozen or so in with a chance as they swung left-handed and down the hill. Candlestick was third going to the second last where the leader got too close to the hurdle, hit the top and fell in a flurry of legs. Huw Walker pulled left to avoid the carnage and kicked Candlestick hard in the ribs.

It was one of those finishes that gives racing a good name. Four horses jumped the final flight abreast and the jockeys almost disappeared in a whirl of arms and whips as they strove to get the final effort from their mounts. There was no question that, this time, Candlestick was trying his best with Huw Walker driving hard for the line. His labours were well rewarded as they flashed past the post to win by a head.

Pleased, I walked back to the paddock to see the horse come back in, only to find that the trainer Bill Burton was looking like thunder. It seemed that a win was not in his game plan. If he’s not careful, I thought, he will confirm to all those watching that the rumours are true.

I leaned on the rail watching Bill Burton and Huw Walker unsaddle the sweating horse. The steam rose in great clouds from the animal’s hindquarters but even this did not hide the animosity between the two men. They seemed oblivious of the thousands around them as they stood toe to toe beside the horse, shouting insults at each other. From where I was standing I couldn’t hear the complete exchange but I clearly caught a few ‘bastards’ as well as some other, less flattering, adjectives. The confrontation appeared to be heading towards violence when an official stepped between them and pulled Bill Burton away. 

Huw looked in my direction, saw me, shrugged his shoulders, winked and then smiled broadly as he went past me to be weighed.

And later in the afternoon, after the Gold Cup:

‘Where’s that bloody jockey of mine?’ Bill Burton was asking anyone and everyone outside the weighing room.

‘Huw Walker?’ I asked as Bill hurried towards me.

‘Bloody unreliable bastard, that’s what he is. Gone bloody AWOL. Have you seen him, Sid?’ I shook my head. ‘He’s due to ride Leaded Light in the next but I can’t find him. I’ll have to declare another jockey.’ He went back inside to change his declaration.

Leaded Light was beaten into second place in a close finish that should have had the crowd on their feet shouting. Such was the mood that the jockey on the winner didn’t even look happy at having won. Many of the crowd had already departed and I, too, decided I’d had enough. I opted to wait for Charles at his car in the hope that he would also want to leave before the last race.
I was making my way past the rows of outside broadcast TV vans when a wide-eyed young woman came stumbling towards me. She was unable to speak but she pointed down the gap between two of the vans.

She had found Huw Walker.

He sat leaned up against the wheel of one of the vans looking at me with an expression of surprise. Except that his staring eyes were not seeing and never would again.

He was still wearing his riding clothes, breeches, lightweight riding boots and a thin white roll-neck top worn under a blue anorak to keep out the rain and the March chill. His anorak hung open so that I could clearly see the three closely grouped bullet wounds in the middle of his chest showing red against the white cotton. I knew what one bullet could do to a man’s guts as I had myself once carelessly been on the receiving end, but these three were closer to the heart and there seemed little doubt as to the cause of death. 

Read 'A Return to Racing' - Dick Francis on writing Under Orders here