Punters get treated with contempt every day of the week by trainers, bookmakers, the authorities and others, with scarcely a murmur from the journalistic ranks.
The crucial difference here – and possibly the reason why certain individuals have taken so much umbrage – seems to be that Bolger has treated journalists with contempt also.
Would that a few more of them felt such moral outrage on behalf of punters about SP reforms, price-fixing and so on. But hell hath no fury like a hack scorned.