Remember John Jenkins...

Wing and a Prayer (nap)

Wasn't he trained by John Junkin?

Ran well from a wide draw.

I think just before Martin Pipe started setting new records at everything, John Jenkins had just set the record for fastest 50 winners in a jumps season

He nearly always had winners in the first week of the jumps season that used to start in August ...

One of my fav trainers. He'd even run his good horses on hard ground. If memory serves Francome was a regular rider for him. Sadly, it was the era of ticker-tape, not video/picture

Yes John was his go to man back in the day.

Go South, Little White Lie, Hi Tide, Beat The Retreat and of course, Grey Salute

I think he trained at Epsom before moving to Royston

I recall backing Grey Salute when he was a pricewise pick and bolted up, might have been Mark Coton days or maybe the guy after him

Has a Trainer ever fallen as far down the scale as this guy?

Not for the first time have i heard it's the worst job in Racing.

Jenkins yard in Royston was purchased from Alan Jarvis's state of the art yard after Jarvis ran into financial problems.

I think it's just a state now.

August into September - on UNwatered ground at - Devon & Exeter - Newton Abbot - Fontwell and Plumpton - was the John Jenkins Modus Operandi

3 - 4  and 5 runners fields  - on ground varying rom Good to Firm to HARD - dependent on whether their had been a Summer Thunderstorm - or, more often, Not.

Then Martin Pipe joined in.

Spot on Onlooker exactly as it was...

Stood me some chunky bets at Wembley many moons ago, always paid without any problems too.

Was he a bookie too? I remember a John Jenkins at Wembley. I'd £180 to win £60 on Aitch Bee one evening; the doggie just managed to make the 1st bend unscathed at odds of 1/3.

If I remember rightly I think some of his high profile horses were killed in action and that was the start of his decline.

Impossible.

John Jenkins the bookmaker passed away just a couple of weeks ago the firms motto was the man you get on with.
talking about dog betting any punter who wants a  50 quid early price on a dog the bet must be sent to ptl even if odds on .

'ronnie' rails', thanks for the info. Sorry to hear about your loss at Cheltenham.

I loved going to the doggies and backing them in the early 80'esp at Hackney on saturday mornings. Then White City, Haringey and Wembley; Yankee Express, Minnies Matador; Sir Winston; Alpine Rocket; Concentration, and of course Ballyregan Bob and Scurlogue Champ.

Very rare nowadays to see a bookie with balls of steel like John Jenkins. Made me laugh one night, laid fortunes on one of Ginger Magees dogs and instead off scrubbing the price off the board he just kept taking the bets at 9/4, when the money dried up as the dogs were going in the traps he scrubbed it and went 5/2. Lol I think it was a two bend sprint, the dog was called Rapid Mover T2 owned by Fred Smith (doubt that was his real name) who had all the hallmarks of an old time  gangster if ever I saw one. The dog won and he paid out like a gent.

Impossible no problem about the cash just took it out of the till.

if you have a spare hour have a look at the Tom Power  betting people well worth a watch.

hope you are well
regards
Ronnie.

Impossible....pretty sure a couple of the dogs you mention were on the same card at Wembley that night.

john jenkins, 'the viking', great showman
He bought up bought a snooker club in walthamstow,think it was after he got warned off for hitting someone, big poker games, rumour was girls would wait the table and ask if you wanted a line or a ****.
He used to turn up in a white porsche 911 at wembley, different class. His brother Tom was a lot more dour/serious
Mourn his passing

I had the 'privilege' of trying to push the other John Jenkins merc out of the mud at Huntingdon races before racing started, he must have forgotten something as racing hadn't even started, big merc, didn't budge, I left then to it, I thought there was a good chance of getting covered in sh*t then I'd be needing to go back home

Balasani had 15 runs for John Jenkins, without winning a single race. Ended up getting stuffed off 92 in a handicap hurdle.

Smudger Smith moved it to Pipe, who won 13 races with it, finishing with a rating of 151.

I was at Stratford on 13 August 1994, when John Jenkins had a runner called Arctic Life in the novices' hurdle. It was owned by a big-punting Northern irish bookmaker, the late T McCoubrey, but being trained by Jenkins was inevitably ungenuine, and had nothing but a string of seconds to its name so far.

It was down to be ridden by an unknown 7-lb claimer caller AP McCoy. Finding out what these Irish conditionals had been doing back home was incredibly difficult in those days, but Eddie Fremantle had ploughed through the Irish Form Book, and discovered that this lad had got horses home in photo finishes, so we went for a punt on this nag.

We backed it at something like 5/1 to turn over the Roland O'Sullivan hotpot, and so evidently did the connections, and it ended up 9/4. In the end even AP McCoy couldn't overcome the John Jenkins factor, and the thing finished second yet again.

SFBTH

just a quick one was Smudger Smith a city guy who packed the city in to go to the racecourse.

hope you are well

regards

Ronnie.

John Jenkins' first winner was Given, way back in 1979. He must have been doing something right for 43 years, though it beats me what it is.

He had Kyoto, a front-running 2-mile chaser which won on the first day of the season at Newton Abbot under 12-7, as well as finishing third in a Champion Chase. Though my main memory of Kyoto is Graham Bradley pulling it up when favourite at a Folkestone evening meeting in the spring a few years later. Then, the train not stopping at Westenhanger station for the journey back. The worst place in the world to be stranded and potless.

Then there was Go South winning the Cesarewitch. I remember being completely baffled by that result. How could a John Jenkins rogue win the toughest Flat race in the Calendar?

A couple of months later I was at Fontwell, where Go South was favourite for the last race on the card. It popped over the first three flights, then simply came to a complete halt when it spotted the gate back to the saddling boxes.

John Jenkins - 43 years of Timeform squiggles.

That's the one, ronnie. I can't remember his real name, he was always 'Smudger'.A close friend of Dave Nevison's.

Glad you're sounding in good form, ronnie.

Macintoshmatty,

Clearly this thread started about a different John Jenkins than the dog bookie and has carried on across two different people ever since!

But, the JJ you speak about and that snooker club gives rise to the most amazing story of the eventual sale of said club!

It was only a rumour but I did hear it from someone with very close knowledge of JJ's activities. Trouble is, there is no way I can repeat the story on here!! Way too gruesome, probably asking for a libel action but dead funny all the same. The Viking was definitely a bit of a lad!!

Mark Smith is his name(Balasani).

John Jenkins the trainer used to drive an old Rolls Royce to the races.

John Jenkins trains a home bred called Sherella, who's a poor maiden, initially rated 62, now down to 38.

Something baffles me about the placing of this filly though. She's out of Mediterranean Sea, who Jenkins trained to win five times on the old Fibresand at Southwell, yet he waited until they'd replaced the Fibresand before he ran this filly there

It could be that Sherella is just useless regardless, but we'll never know now as far as the Fibresand is concerned.

and knowing things like that is why you'll never win the AW competition.

True, tyred

After John Jenkins came along John White

The Knight

I know who he bought the club off, guy called Barry who lived in Ruislip and had a few clubs including the one on Tottenham High street that used to run the  comp called the ' Tottenham Graveyard', think it used to start at about midnight on a Friday night

I don't know the story you refer to about when the club was sold on, wish I did.

I did hear a good one today though in essex that involved a lot of skulduggery though no betting/racing people involved, it would make a film, Oh bloody hell I think it did!! ( though not the true story as i heard it today!)