Excellent thread.
In my lifetime I don’t think anyone can compare with ‘Daddy’ Martin when it comes to getting a horse ridiculously well handicapped, picking the right race, punting the horse with a capital ‘P’ and then heading for the old ‘payout window’. Although in saying that he did have the ‘magic fridge’ aiding and abetting him in all this. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more... But whatever when it comes to plotting and then punting one this yard, in its pomp, had few equals.
Of course to have a proper punt, in most cases, you have to get a horse extremely well handicapped in the first place and in my time 3 trainers on the level have been particular adept at doing this in one way or another. One is regarded as an almighty rogue (Prescott) whilst the other 2 are seen as being entirely honourable and bastions of our sport! The latter pair are old boy Gosden and John Dunlop.
There is also a small Wiltshire yard who do very, very well when they punt one. When the money is down rarely do those bookie chappies emerge unscathed. That’s the barn of Michael Blake. They have mainly average horses, at best, but he certainly understands the handicapping system and can perform punting miracles under either code.
However, the warning has to be that when a yard gets identified as a gambling one there beasts are then backed to ridiculous proportions and any ‘value’ odds disappear quicker than you can say ‘cor blimey, how bally short is that one’. The key is identifying these trainers before, I say before, they become fashionable with the ordinary punter.