Even now, if I watch it back, I get chills,” Eve Johnson Houghton says, 12 months after saddling both her first winner at Royal Ascot and her first in a Group One with Accidental Agent, a horse bred and owned by her mother. The glow of success, she says, “went on for a good six-to-nine months”. If she can repeat the trick on Tuesday, with the same horse in the same race, it might last all year.
On paper, Accidental Agent had little chance in last season’s Queen Anne Stakes, the Royal meeting’s opening race. On the track, however, he charged down the straight mile, passing more fancied runners from the powerhouse stables of Aidan O’Brien and Saeed bin Suroor, to win at 33-1. It was a very rare success for a smaller trainer in a sport where size is increasingly what matters and the big money scarcely comes off second best.
In football terms, it was not just a cup upset but one achieved away from home against a full-strength lineup, and there are very few cup minnows who can shock Premier League opponents two seasons running.
“You can’t compare apples and pears,” Johnson Houghton says. “I can’t compare myself to the huge yards. They have huge firepower and lots of money going in there and good luck to them, they do a fantastic job. We’re not playing on the same field, but it just goes to prove that when we’ve got a good one, we can do it.”
Now she hopes to do it again, with the same horse and in the same race, a feat not achieved for 112 years. Again, Accidental Agent will need to beat a favourite trained by O’Brien in Le Brivido, though odds of 12-1 do seem a little dismissive given last year’s winner beat Le Brivido in the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury last month.
“It’s Aidan O’Brien’s, so of course it’s the favourite,” says Johnson Houghton. “They always put him in as favourite. But I can’t see why he’s going to turn the form around.
“He [Le Brivido] had already had a run [at Newbury]. Why is he going to turn the form around with me, with Laurens [second] or with [the winner] Mustashry? Laurens and us, neither of us had a run before [this season], so you’d like to think we’d have the biggest improvement out of the first four or five and I know we’ve come on for the race.
“We were using it as a trial and I knew he’d need it. I’d have liked to get a run into him before that but I couldn’t, I ran out of time. So he needed it and he’s come on for it hugely.”
Accidental Agent has not won in three starts since last year’s success, and beat only one horse home in his two subsequent outings in 2018.
“He had a few problems,” says Johnson Houghton, “but we’ve sorted those out. We’ve upgraded some of the facilities in the yard with the money [from last year’s win], we bought a new spa and things like that, and we’re probably up on numbers and quality since then as well.”
In fact, her historic Woodway stable near Blewbury in Oxfordshire is in rude health. It may not welcome dozens of seven-figure yearlings through its doors every spring, but the Classic winners trained on its gallops in the past include Gilles De Retz, the 50-1 winner of the 2,000 Guineas in 1956.
According to the record books, Gilles De Retz was trained by Charles Jerdein. In reality, his preparation was overseen by Helen Johnson Houghton, Eve’s grandmother, in an era when the Jockey Club refused to issue trainer’s licences to women.
“That was before my time,” the current licence holder says, “but in the grand scheme, not that long ago at all. Women were not deemed capable of that sort of thing.”
Accidental Agent proved 12 months ago that the latest Johnson Houghton in charge at Woodway is more than capable. He was a big outsider and so, in some eyes, a lucky winner but his trainer is unconcerned. Without Parole, a year younger than Accidental Agent, won a Group One over a mile later in the afternoon but finished behind her runner at Newbury last month.
Carlisle
2.00 Space Ace 2.30 Diamond Shower 3.00 Dream House (nb) 3.30 Chinese Spirit 4.00 Praxidice 4.30 Rosin Box 5.00 Matewan 5.30 Brutalab
Catterick
2.15 Miss Lucy 2.45 Tricky Dicky (nap) 3.15 Grand Inquisitor 3.45 John Clare 4.15 Champagne Marengo 4.45 Morning Duel 5.15 Rockley Point
Windsor
5.40 Kaylen’s Mischief 6.10 Passing Nod 6.40 Raahy 7.10 Grapevine 7.40 Danzan 8.10 Hamish 8.40 Oydis
Nottingham
5.50 Bredenbury 6.20 Lady Calcaria 6.50 Hawaam 7.20 Tangramm 7.50 Chance Of Glory 8.20 Fitzrovia 8.50 Battle Of Issus
“They said they weren’t very good four-year-olds last year and the three-year-olds were better,” she says, “but Without Parole didn’t get anywhere near them at Newbury, he hasn’t proven himself from that generation.
“He can only beat the horses in front of him, and if they’re not as good as the horses of 10 years ago, so what? Who cares? I won.”
