Francome, John

Beauty which had cost John's father £50 with no money left over for a saddle. For the first year, John rode her bareback.John was born on December 13, 1952. He attended Park Senior High School in Swindon but, whilst his parents had visions of him becoming a vet, school lessons came a poor third to a lad whose thoughts and ambitions revolved around horses and football.

As he grew older, John came to realise just how hard his parents had worked: his father was a railway fireman who, to make up his pay, cut hair in his spare time whilst his Cardiff-born mother kept chickens in the garden.

His father, no stick-in-the-mud, became a self-taught builder and, on a trial and error basis, turned his growing knowledge and effort into a thriving business.

As the family's finances improved, so, too, did the quality of John's ponies. Willy Wagtail, an exceptionally 'pretty' pony - jet black with a silver mane and tail and spots on his quarters - turned out to be one of the fastest gymkhana ponies in England, yet it was on the back of the Grade 'A' Red Paul that John first stepped, or rode, into the limelight.

Competing in France and Switzerland, they won the European Championships, thus paving a way to a more adult adventure.

On the advice of a friend of a friend, John's father got in touch with a local horse trainer, seeking a start for his son.

An interview was arranged for 16 September 1969.

The trainer his father had written to was none other than the redoubtable Fred Winter.

John's father accompanied his son to the interview where John asked Fred Winter frankly what were the chances of him becoming a jockey, Winter looked at his 14 stone father and the size of John's hands and feet and said that John would probably become too heavy but added that he could start as an apprentice the following month if he so wished.

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John's first ride in public came at Worcester in December on Multigrey, owned and trained by Godfrey Burr, who lived near John's parents in Sevenhampton. Multigrey won easily but jockey David Mould, one of the most stylish riders of the time, brought John back to earth when telling him that, though he'd won, he'd looked bloody awful.

On his second ride, on King Street, John broke his wrist.

Once healed, he was up and riding again, this time on Well Spent at Towcester. It was unplaced, but John was back on the racecourse.

In February, John rode the first of the 575 winners that he would, over the years, ride for Fred Winter. Called Osceola, it won at Towcester.

Then along came Osbaldeston, one of the few horses who could match the speed of Tingle Creek.

Together, John and Osbaldeston won 17 races, and John had arrived.

When, 16 years later, he quit the saddle, John had notched up 1,138 winners which included a Cheltenham Gold Cup, two King George Vl Chases, two Hennessy Gold Cups, the Champion Hurdle, the Tote Gold Trophy and the Welsh Grand National.

He was, however, to have no luck in he Grand National: his debut mount, Cardinal Error in 1972, refused at the third. In 1976, having declined to ride the eventual winner, Rag Trade, on the grounds that it was the most 'horrible horse' he'd ever ridden, John took a purler of a fall on Golden Rapper and finished up in Walton hospital.

Having won his seventh championship with 101 winners, John quit the saddle in 1985.

He joined the Channel Four Racing Team, only to quit in 2013 after a massive shake-up.

John also began to write with reasonable success.

John married Miriam on 26 June, 1976, officially recorded as the hottest day ever in London. The pair had met while he was an apprentice and she was Patrick Haslam's secretary. On their first date he had taken her to a cinema in Swindon to watch Tales from the Crypt.

They spent their honeymoon in Greece: John actually spent the first five days in bed with sunstroke.