A contrarian punter fighting the world and his wife on the greens at Augusta

In times of great punting consternation, when horses seem to be running disrespectfully slowly and the temptation is to row in with popular opinion, find a few 'short ones' to steady the ship, I increasingly find myself returning to my favourite quote, a cheerfully dismissive commentary on the sum total of human knowledge, from author and screenwriter William Goldman. It's very simple: "Nobody knows anything."

It was originally directed at producers in the movie business, but as a punter I've noted its relevance in many fields. I used to think bookmakers were very good judges of politics, for example, until Ed Milliband, two general elections and Brexit suggested otherwise, so now I bet in a spirit of what I like to call 'productive cynicism', which involves disagreeing with what everybody else says while I work out how and by how much they're wrong. If it turns out they're not wrong, I grudgingly leave the room; but if they are wrong, I start looking for the hole in the market like a pig digging for truffles.

I rather fancifully see Goldman as a disciple of the professional punter Alan Potts, whose book Against The Crowd highlighted the need to take a contrary view in order to sniff out value. It's sound thinking, but not a way to find favour in racing conversation.