Bolt - Dick Francis

When Kit Fielding, champion steeplechase jockey, finds out that his chief patron, Princess Casilia, is facing an increasingly serious threat, he goes unhesitatingly to her aid. Neither realises that his instinctive support is the first step towards a frightening battle involving violent risk, with the honour of the princess's family as the prize and Kit's own destruction as the forfeit. Beset by other problems, not least his troubled romance with Danielle, the princess's niece, Kit knows that while steering through a maze of deadly outside dangers and riding at breakneck speed in races, he must also contend with the long-term hatred of his own family's enemy. Many of the characters from BREAK IN reappear in this superbly told story.