Author Dick Francis dies at 89

LEADING horse racing figures and authors paid tribute to a “people’s champion” after the death of Dick Francis, the jockey turned best-selling thriller writer.

His son Felix said his father, 89, was an extraordinary man.

The horse racing fraternity paid a string of tributes.

Former BBC commentator Sir Peter O’Sullevan said Francis was one of the “people’s champions”.

Frederick Forsyth praised Francis’s “immensely prolific” output of “page-turners” and said authors were still “walking in his footsteps”.

Dick Francis, the author of 42 novels, was “rightly acclaimed” as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world.