“Imagine what I could do with some beautifully bred horses!”

The problem with pulling a rabbit out of a hat more than once is there is a chance that the degree of difficulty starts to become underestimated.

When you have done it three times, it begins to look like some form of alchemy is at work.

Eve Johnson Houghton’s speciality has become winning races at Royal Ascot with horses that cost pocket money in modern racing terms, but it is not necessarily a reputation she wants to be saddled with.

She says: “I have had three Royal Ascot winners. One [2021 Windsor Castle Stakes winner Chipotle] I bought for ten grand, one [2025 Windsor Castle Stakes winner Havana Hurricane] I bought for nine grand and one [2018 Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes winner Accidental Agent] was bought back in for eight grand. No-one wanted him.

My three Royal Ascot winners have cost under 30 grand between them

‘‘My three Royal Ascot winners have cost under 30 grand between them – that doesn’t mean to say that is all I want. I have just been lucky. Please don’t pigeon-hole me.

‘‘Of course, it’s the dream for everyone to have a Royal Ascot winner. Now some think that they can give me ten grand and I can get them one, but it doesn’t quite work like that.

‘‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs. You might get your gem, but you get a lot of rubbish with them. I have got some really good horses at the moment although I have never had so many horses that
cannot win a race.

‘‘I don’t think I have ever spent over £100,000 on a horse. I would love to. Imagine what I could do with some beautifully-bred horses!’’

The last few words are delivered with a smile and the Johnson Houghton tongue pointing firmly in the direction of her cheek.

Yet the reality is that reputations can be hard to shake off and, whether she likes it or not, Johnson Houghton has built up a body of evidence to justify hers as someone who has an in-built metal detector when it comes to finding needles in the equine haystack.

Since Royal Ascot, Havana Hurricane, who is owned by Jonny Allison and Tom Cartwright, has been beaten a short head in Newbury’s Super Sprint before being unsuited by rain-softened ground  when third in the Richmond Stakes at Glorious Goodwood to take his winnings to over £170,000.

Johnson Houghton still emerged from Goodwood with one of the big juvenile prizes thanks to 35,000 guineas purchase Zavateri.

The son of Without Parole, who is owned by Mick and Janice Mariscotti, captured his second Group 2 prize when adding the Vintage Stakes to his success in Newmarket’s July Stakes.

They are the latest on a list of value-for-money racehorses that Johnson Houghton has found including Jumby, a 35,000gns pick-up in 2019 whose six wins include the 2022 Group 2 Hungerford Stakes and the 2023 Group 3 John of Gaunt Stakes.

The Cheka, who won the 2011 John of Gaunt Stakes and was runner-up to Mayson in the 2012 Group 1 July Cup, cost 58,000gns, 2023 Group 3 Acomb Stakes winner Indian Run was a 75,000gns buy, Streets Of Gold, who won five races as a two-year-old in 2022 before finishing third in the 2023 Jersey Stakes, cost £27,000 and Rage Of Bamby, winner of this season’s Group 3 Hackwood  Stakes at Newbury, cost €35,000.

Like Havana Hurricane, both Chipotle and Streets Of Gold are by the late Havana Gold. Johnson Houghton has a profile of a stallion that she likes to follow with her main ally, bloodstock agent  Anthony Bromley of Highflyer Bloodstock.

Bromley fills the role previously occupied by Johnson Houghton’s late trainer father, Fulke. Johnson Houghton explains: “Dad and I worked the sales well together. We bought horses like [2002  Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes winner] Tout Seul and The Cheka together.

‘‘More recently, I have had Anthony. It took a couple of years for us to get in sync but now we work well together too.

We look at stallions that aren’t necessarily hot but have a good record

‘‘He knows what I like and I know what he likes. My owners don’t have big money, so we have got to be very careful what we buy. We don’t go for the obvious.

‘‘You need to look at the stallions that aren’t necessarily hot but have a good record. Quite often a fourth-season stallion would be good.

“They may have has a good first season and then the second and third seasons haven’t necessarily been as good because people have been waiting to see what the first crop did. Then they get
better mares for that one.

‘‘That’s when you can hit them. Quite often, their progeny are not as expensive because they have had those not-so good crops. But then they have got their best load of mares and they are not
overly expensive.

‘‘That is sort of a niche that worked quite well with Havana Gold when we bought Chipotle and Streets Of Gold.

‘‘He did really well with Havana Grey and then the next two years weren’t as good, so people wrote him off.

‘‘Havana Hurricane is by Havana Gold and again we looked at all Havana Golds. He was just a really big, strong individual. The mare was rated 46. That would normally be a line straight through from me, but there was something about him that I really liked.

I must like a horse as an individual

‘‘He had a good way of going. He looked through the bridle well and was well put together, so I was willing to take a chance at a price with him.

‘‘I must like a horse as an individual. Most of the horses I buy are bought on spec. I might have people I think are going to buy them, but they are not guaranteed to. You try to slot them in the
right places and get the right horses with the right people.

‘‘When you are buying horses like that, you have to love them to be able to sell them on. You have to stand behind them and say I bought this horse because of this or that.”

With the purchase of Zavateri, there was owner involvement.

Johnson Houghton continues: ‘‘The Mariscottis like to come to the sales. Andrew Balding is their number one trainer. He gives them a list of horses he likes and I give them a list.

‘‘If a horse is on both lists, Andrew gets it, which is fine. I am very grateful to be number two trainer!

‘‘We are looking for slightly different horses. He has the longer-term ones and my brief was to find something that could run as a two-year-old with potential. The Mariscottis love to come and look at them and we all have to like them.

‘‘Even if I love a horse, if they don’t like it, we don’t buy it – and it’s the same if Anthony or I don’t like it. If we all do, we set our budget and away we go. We all happened to like this horse.’’

When Havana Hurricane won at Royal Ascot it was an emotional moment for Johnson Houghton, coming four months after her father died.

‘‘I suddenly thought I would love to ring dad now,’’ Johnson Houghton recalls.

He’d have been here dishing out champagne to the staff!

‘‘I always used to speak to him on the way back from the races, win, lose or draw.

‘’I just know that the first person I would have rung would have been him. He’d have been so chuffed, and he’d have been here dishing out champagne to the staff! At that moment I really missed him.’’

Johnson Houghton became her father’s assistant in 2000. There was a gradual transition in the balance of power until she took over the licence in 2007, when the stable was down to just 17 horses.

Johnson Houghton believes it made her father proud that she managed to build up numbers to around the 80 horses he trained in his glory days when his owners included the Aga Khan, Charles Engelhard and Sheikh Mohammed. Among his best horses were Ribocco and Ribero, who completed the Irish Derby and St Leger double in 1967 and 1968 respectively, outstanding mare Rose
Bowl, Habitat, the top miler in Europe in 1969, Ile De Bourbon, winner of the 1978 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Double Form, winner of the King’s Stand Stakes, Haydock Sprint Cup and Prix de l’Abbaye in 1979.

Fulke had taken over the licence at Woodway Stables near Blewbury in Oxfordshire from his mother Helen, twin sister of legendary jumps trainer Fulke Walwyn.

Helen trained 1956 2,000 Guineas winner Gilles De Retz but because the Jockey Club prevented women from holding a trainer’s licence, the success was officially credited to her assistant, Charles Jerdein.

I had no interest in being a trainer

With Johnson Houghton’s mother Gaie being the breeder of 2020 Sussex Stakes winner Mohaather as well as Accidental Agent, the horse named after the exploits of her trainer father John  Goldsmith in special operations in the Second World War, it would be easy to assume that Johnson Houghton’s pedigree meant she was destined to train racehorses.

Yet the woman who rode two winners of the Diamond Stakes at Ascot as an amateur jockey travelled winding lanes rather than motorways to reach the training destination.

That includes working in London for two years as an office manager for a marketing company, and later backpacking around Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore before ending up in Australia.

At the time, Johnson Houghton says she had ‘‘no interest in being a trainer’’. Returning to Britain, she started working for syndicate manager Henry Ponsonby and riding out for Barry Hills before spending a year working for Fiona Marner at Kingwood Stud in Lambourn.

She then joined the late John Hills, staying with him for seven years, first as secretary then assistant trainer, making the leap because “I thought I could do a better job than the person who had  been doing it”.

Johnson Houghton returned home when her father needed an assistant, but her love of the secluded haven that is Woodway and the Berkshire Downs is why she threw herself so wholehearted into restoring the stable’s fortunes.

As the sun shines down on the Woodway garden and the swallows chatter overhead, it is easy to see why it means so much to Johnson Houghton.

I am the original nepo baby, aren’t I?

‘‘The place was falling down,” she says.

“I put so much money into keeping everything up to date while not losing the character.

‘‘I am the original nepo baby, aren’t I? Who else would get somewhere like this to train? I am lucky – but I do feel responsibility for the place.

‘‘I have always loved Woodway and the Downs. I could almost have lived out in Australia or London, but I couldn’t leave the Downs. I have always been drawn back to it.

“It is the most beautiful place. I just feel I need to look after Woodway for whoever has it afterwards. It is just magical.’’

Johnson Houghton is excited about the potential of an unraced Wootton Bassett two-year-old filly called Splish Splash, sent to her by Anthony and Sonia Rogers out of their 2018 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Skitter Scatter. Plans for Havana Hurricane and Zavateri have also been made.

‘‘Havana Hurricane is in the Mill Reef Stakes, but we could go back to five furlongs for the Flying Childers Stakes. Maybe that and then the Middle Park,’’ Johnson Houghton says. ‘‘When he came
back from Goodwood he had quite a nasty knock. He had bruised a leg quite badly.

‘‘Zavateri will have Classic entries. The National Stakes and then the Dewhurst are the plan. The Mariscottis have said he is not for sale, so fingers crossed, but there have been huge offers for him.

‘‘As they say, what are they going to do, spend the money trying to get another horse like him? We have lucked out.’’

It is a phrase Johnson Houghton uses frequently, but it doesn’t apply to her ability to unearth equine talent. That has happened far too often for it to be simple good fortune.

 

“Change is needed, and nobody likes change”

Eve Johnson Houghton has welcomed the BHA decision to pump an extra £5 million into prize-money in the biggest races next year as well as boosting the purses of novice and maiden races.

Novices and maidens are seen as developmental races with the potential to boost the long-term health of British racing.

Johnson Houghton says: ‘‘Much as I don’t want them to be aiming extra prize-money for all the big races because it isn’t going to be going to us little trainers, that is the right place for the extra money to go and there will be a trickle-down effect.

‘‘Hopefully, it will garner more interest and things will get better. A rising tide lifts all ships. If we get it all rising, everyone will benefit. We all need to look at it that way.

‘‘Also, if they make the novices and maidens higher value, people are going to try harder in them.

‘‘I know it’s a subject we are not supposed to talk about, but there are a lot of horses that aren’t necessarily aiming to win their novices and maidens and trying to get a good handicap mark.

‘‘If you make the novices and maidens worth a lot more money, it makes them worth winning.’’

Johnson Houghton sees positives in the confirmation that Lord Allen will take up the position of BHA Chair with his plan to appoint independent directors to the BHA Board.

She says: ‘‘Change is needed and nobody likes change. It is going to rock the boat. Some people will like things he does and others won’t. I am hoping it will be good for the sport.

‘‘Independent directors will be good too, so long as they get people in who know about racing. It is all very well having a beautiful view of what should happen, but you need to understand the nuts and bolts of it to make it happen.’’

Johnson Houghton is less positive about the plan to increase the distance of the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot next year from five furlong to six furlong as well as alter the eligibility criteria for entries.

The changes to the Windsor Castle Stakes, at the behest of the BHA’s Flat Pattern Committee, mean the race will be limited to two-year-olds whose sire won over a minimum of seven furlongs as a two-year-old or a mile as a three-year-old or older.

It has been designed with the intension of strengthening the middle-distance and staying divisions.

Johnson Houghton adds: “I don’t understand why they are doing it. Havana Hurricane would have been eligible as would Zavateri, so it is not a personal thing.

‘‘I am saying it because I don’t think it is the right thing to do. I firmly believe it is going to attract lesser horses to run in the Windsor Castle Stakes and we already have the Chesham Stakes [over seven furlongs].

‘‘I don’t think it is right to be restricting championship races – and Ascot is a championship.

“I would leave the Windsor Castle Stakes as it is and perhaps change the Roses Stakes [run over five furlongs] at York’s Ebor meeting. It is later in the year and might attract the late developers.”