The king of the Cheltenham jungle who took on JP and came out standing

Festival Legends: Freddie Williams

The epicentre of the Cheltenham Festival has always been found in the betting ring, where the tremors of every ferocious encounter on the track are translated into hard cash and jangling nerves.

This is a jungle that has been stalked by some of the big cats of the punting world, not least the hard-hitting owner JP McManus, but for every serious backer there has to be an equally serious layer, and JP found his in the shape of Freddie Williams.

McManus and Williams, as much as they were fierce rivals, were also kindred spirits; think of them as the yin and yang of adversarial gambling and you won't be far away. They were narrow-eyed gunfighters engaged in an annual shootout at their very own O.K. Corral in the Cotswolds, and the exchanges of fire were mighty and relentless, but Williams had known real hardship as a boy and the idea of going eyeball to eyeball with a fellow punter held no terrors for him at all. Not for nothing was he known as Fearless Freddie.