Miriam Francome, a former Racing Channel presenter and BBC Royal Ascot pundit, died on March 20, 2026, in Swindon hospital. She was 72.
Born Miriam Strigner, she began as a secretary in Lambourn’s training yards in the 1970s, later married seven-time champion jump jockey John Francome, and spent the second half of the 1990s as a presenter on The Racing Channel. She had also worked as a fashion pundit on the BBC’s Royal Ascot broadcasts during the late 1980s. In Lambourn, Berkshire, where she had lived since the mid-1970s, every trainer and journalist who paid tribute described her the same way: the most loved person in the valley.
Those who watched The Racing Channel in the late 1990s recalled a moment when a viewer asked how often she had a bet. “Me have a bet? Never. Do you think I am a mug.” Twenty-five years later, it was still being quoted.
Presenter Ed Chamberlain announced her death on ITV Racing on the morning of March 21. She is survived by her brother, Peter Strigner.
Table of Contents
At a Glance
| Born | Miriam Strigner, circa 1953 |
| Died | March 20, 2026, Swindon hospital, aged 72 |
| Survived by | Brother Peter Strigner |
| Former spouse | John Francome MBE |
| Career | Model; racing secretary; BBC Royal Ascot pundit; Racing Channel presenter |
| Home | South Fawley, near Lambourn, Berkshire |
Who Was Miriam Francome?
A British horse racing presenter and former BBC pundit, Miriam Francome spent more than five decades connected to National Hunt racing. She worked as a presenter and interviewer on The Racing Channel from 1995 and as a fashion expert on the BBC’s Royal Ascot coverage during the late 1980s alongside broadcaster Julian Wilson. Born Miriam Strigner in approximately 1953, she was the former wife of John Francome MBE, seven times the British champion jump jockey, and lived in the Lambourn racing community for most of her adult life.
From Model to Racing Secretary
Before horse racing, Miriam Strigner had worked as a model. She entered the sport through a job with trainer Ken Payne, then moved to a secretarial role with trainer Patrick Haslam in Lambourn. Through the Haslam yard she met John Francome, then working as a claiming jockey under trainer Fred Winter at Uplands Stables.
Francome had joined the Winter yard in 1969. By the time they met, in the early to mid-1970s, he was already winning regularly in jump racing and building the record that would come to define that era of the sport. Lambourn, in those years, was a small village built around horses and the trainers, jockeys, and stable staff who kept them. Everyone in its racing world tended to know everyone else.
The Marriage, the 1976 Heatwave, and the BBC
They married on June 26, 1976, during the opening week of what became the most extreme summer on British meteorological record. The 1976 heatwave sent temperatures above 35 degrees across England, with 16 consecutive days above 30 degrees recorded at Heathrow from June 23 onward. It was also the season John Francome won his first British champion jockey title, the start of a run that produced seven championships and 1,138 career wins before he retired in 1985.
Trainer Charlie Mann, who knew them through those years, described the couple at their peak as “the Posh and Becks of the racing world.”
Through the late 1980s, with the marriage still intact, Miriam appeared as fashion expert on the BBC’s Royal Ascot coverage alongside Julian Wilson, who served as the BBC’s lead horse racing broadcaster from 1966 until his retirement in 1997.
Their marriage ended around 1990, after nearly 15 years.
The Racing Channel Years
When the separation came, Miriam turned her attention back to broadcasting. The Racing Channel launched in 1995 and she worked there as a presenter and interviewer through the second half of the decade.
Sky Sports Racing presenter Alex Hammond, who worked alongside her at the channel, paid tribute after her death:
“I worked with Miriam on The Racing Channel back in the day and she was one of life’s lovely people.”
She had been around the sport since the early 1970s, and it showed in her work: direct, well-informed, and apparently indifferent to impressing anyone. The betting quip was characteristic.
Life in Lambourn After the Marriage
When the separation came, Miriam did not leave Lambourn. She moved in with trainer Charlie Brooks, who had taken over the training licence at Fred Winter’s Uplands Stables in 1989, the same yard where John Francome had ridden throughout his career. She stayed within the racing community she had entered as a secretary fifteen years earlier.
Her relationship with Brooks lasted for more than a decade. After it ended, she settled in South Fawley, a few miles from Lambourn, and in her later years she walked dogs through the Berkshire countryside, often other people’s as much as her own.
Racing Welfare, the sport’s official welfare charity, described her as “a lifelong lover of horses and animals whose passion never dimmed.”
How Racing Remembered Miriam Francome
When the tributes arrived on March 21, Nicky Henderson, who trains out of Seven Barrows in Lambourn, gave the most direct account:
“It’s a dreadful day for Lambourn. She was just fabulous in every way. She loved life, she loved her dogs, and it’s really sad. Everyone adored her, and she helped everyone. We went back a very long way.”
Jonathan Powell, the racing journalist who had attended the 1976 wedding and was still talking about her fifty years on, said she had “quickly become the most loved person in the Lambourn valley,” adding that when the marriage ended “she coped with it well and continued to have a useful and enjoyable life.”
Trainer Richard Phillips, who had known her for more than four decades, said: “She was beautiful inside and out and loved humans and animals equally. I doubt if there has been a more popular figure in the Lambourn valley.”
Charlie Brooks called her “the kindest and most generous person you could ever meet.” Trainer Charlie Mann said she “was an amazing person who was terribly kind and would do anything for anyone” and that she “touched a lot of people.”
John Francome had been named as the patron of the 2026 Lambourn Open Day just weeks before Miriam’s death. The Open Day, which raises funds for stable staff welfare and has run for more than 30 years, also paid tribute publicly.
By the time she died, Miriam Francome had been in Lambourn for fifty years. She had outlasted her marriage and her television career, and in her last years she walked other people’s dogs through the Berkshire countryside. When Nicky Henderson said she was the most loved person in the valley, he was speaking for people who had known her since the 1970s. None of them were thinking about The Racing Channel or the BBC or the summer of 1976. They were thinking about her.
Miriam Francome is survived by her brother, Peter Strigner.
