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Jon Franklin was born in Harrow, Greater London, in 1963. Shouting The Odds, published in July, 2021, is his debut novel and his inspiration for writing it comes from over thirty years' experience of the betting and racing industry, ten years as an employee of William Hill, followed by twenty-two years as a professional racecourse photographer. Shouting The Odds received glowing reviews in the Racing Post and the Sporting Life and Franklin was also the subject of a two part interview by Simon Nott as part of the Star Sports #BettingPeople series which can be seen on You Tube. The stand-alone sequel to Shouting The Odds, Manvers Road Star, was published in March, 2025. Jon began working for William Hill in 1987. It was his first experience of the racing and betting world, a world that has fascinated him ever since. During the years that followed, he worked at several betting shops in the West London area including the branch on Hanger Lane of which he became manager. Other than racing and betting, Jon's other passion in life was photography and following a re-think about his future, he successfully applied for a place on the degree course at Nottingham Trent University in 1994, where he supported himself financially by continuing to work at William Hill part time. During his penultimate year, The Independent on Saturday Magazine published a portfolio of his photographs that documented racecourse life in Britain. Jon graduated in 1997 and his first break as a racecourse photographer came via Lord March, owner of The Goodwood Estate. Thus began a twenty-year career as photographer of the 'Glorious Goodwood' meeting on Goodwood Estate's behalf. After relocating to Sweden in 2000, Jon's association with Goodwood led to work from many other of the UK and Ireland's leading racecourses such as Aintree, Ascot, Cheltenham, Epsom, Haydock Park, Sandown Park and Punchestown among others, before acquiring new clients in Scandinavia such as Jägersro, Täby and Övrevoll.Jon has written about his experiences as a racecourse photographer in The British Journal Of Photography Magazine and Gallop International Magazine, for whom he has also translated articles about racing from Swedish into English. He lives in Malmö, Sweden with his wife Annika.
""Set in the smoky and slightly shady world of betting shops and racecourses in the mid-1990's, Jon Franklin's 2nd novel, Manvers Road Star, is a heart-warming story of friendship and camaraderie born of a shared passion for horseracing. And Franklin knows his stuff. With his many years experience as a bookmaker and then a racecourse photographer, the author skilfully draws on his expertise to create genuine and likeable characters that the reader can't help pulling for in a narrative that fairly rattles along. Though Manvers Road Star is a sequel to Franklin's first novel, Shouting the Odds, it can be happily read as a stand-alone, and you certainly don't need to be a fan of horse-racing to be swept along in this galloping good read."" Nick McLoughlin
The Kentucky Oaks
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Kelso
Racing's Five-Time Horse of the...
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