Ruin to riches for Wiltshire

Yet make it back he has. Nearly five years later he is one of the top independent bookmakers operating in the betting ring, with a new home, new cars and a racehorse that is going places.

Sue, his wife, after learning the awful truth, immediately took herself off to a fortune-teller.

Wiltshire said: "The woman told her that she sensed a disaster had happened, but she could see a baby horse and it was going to get us out of trouble." In the good old days he had owned horses. One of them, Vado Via, was a mare who won several races when handled by David Wintle. Six weeks before the Ascot debacle, Vado Via had produced a colt foal by Sure Blade, and Wiltshire vowed that even if everything else went, the foal would stay.

He did, and last Tuesday, trained by Norma Macauley, Mi Odds, gained his third course and distance victory since December at Southwell. The gelding went on to finish a creditable third at Lingfield on Saturday in a prelude to the track's forthcoming Lingfield Derby and Wiltshire, who mixes punting with bookmaking, has invested wisely each time Mi Odds has come up trumps.

Wiltshire, 46, is built on the same rolling scale as his name. He has come a long way since starting out as a kennel lad at the White City Stadium and who also sold blooms from his parents' flower barrow in Leather Lane, Hol-born. For the latter he got the nickname 'Flower', but if you don't know him well you would be advised not to use it. Something that looks less like a flower would be hard to find.

He admits he was a "mug punter" in his younger days, but later he saw the light and left backing horses to others.

"I decided to bet on sporting events covered by the Big Three where they didn't have such a professional approach as they do to racing."

As a result of inspired punting, Wilt-shire amassed enough to contemplate joining "the old enemy".

Having to sell-up after the disaster was hard, but the family - daughter Kelly, 23, son Nick, 21, and four-year-old Charlie - now live in something like their former style between Warwick and Stratford.

Wiltshire has rebuilt his empire with pitches as far apart as Folkestone and Perth. It took him a long time to pluck up courage and go back to Ascot but he won't have a pitch there.

Does he hold a grudge against Dettori? "Not a chance," says Wiltshire. "My dream is that he rides a winner for me one day. He should do. The little devil owes me."