1,200 winners including Ile De Bourbon <\/a>in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 1978. He remained a key presence in the stable until his death in February this year, and Johnson Houghton says that she is \u201cstill really lucky to have Dad as my backup. I\u2019ve really, really missed him this year, but it was a great grounding and I\u2019ve still got my mum around, which is fabulous.<\/p>\n\u201cTrainers are the ones with our names in lights but no trainer is capable without their team, and I\u2019ve got a brilliant yard team as well. We\u2019re a wonderfully old-fashioned yard, I try to make small improvements every year, but I took over an amazing place and you can\u2019t get away from the basics. I\u2019m lucky enough to train for some wonderful people as well, and they trust me to do the best with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Accidental Agent, a home-bred who was unwanted at the sales and bought back for 8k gns (\u00a38,400), won the Group One Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2018. Chipotle, a 10k gns (\u00a310.5k) yearling, took the Windsor Castle Stakes at the Royal meeting three years later, while this summer has been a triumph for the trainer\u2019s eye for a bargain, with Havana Hurricane, at 9k gns (\u00a39,450) taking the Windsor Castle and the unbeaten Zavateri, still a relatively cheap buy at 35k gns (\u00a336,750), proving to be one of 2025\u2019s best juveniles. Two Group Two victories \u2013 in the July Stakes at Newmarket and the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood \u2013 mean that he has already repaid his purchase price more than four times over.<\/p>\n
As a result, Johnson Houghton is on course to reach \u00a31m in prize money in Britain in a season for the first time since she took over the licence at the magnificent 200-acre Woodway Stables, near Blewbury in Oxfordshire in 2007. There are extra orders, too, to be filled at the yearling sales over the next couple of months, though not necessarily any increase in her individual budgets. Everyone loves a bargain, after all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have, definitely [got more orders],\u201d she says, \u201cbut all to a level. Which is great, don\u2019t get me wrong, but it would be nice to get a few more \u2026 grown-up orders, shall we say?<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I keep trying to tell everyone, it\u2019s amazing if you can actually win a Royal Ascot race for 10 grand. It\u2019s possible, but it\u2019s bloody hard, and you\u2019ve got to be at it a long time to do that. The owner of Havana Hurricane had some disasters with me before that, and he stuck at it and in the end, we got it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fulke Johnson Houghton saddled more than 1,200 winners, including Ile De Bourbon in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 1978. Photograph: Chris Smith\/Popperfoto\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Another essential talent when buying racehorses at auction is knowing when to let go.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou set your price and sometimes you might say, I\u2019ll give it another kick, but other times, you just walk away,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to, you can\u2019t overspend and just because you pay more, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you get any better. You just don\u2019t have to forgive so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
And though sticking to a budget might seem to rule out the need to consider every yearling at an auction like Doncaster, where around 400 horses will go under the hammer in two days and the top prices are into six figures, the opposite is often the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have to look at more,\u201d Johnson Houghton says. \u201cYou have to look at everything in case something falls through the gaps. I won\u2019t look at every horse here but Ant [the veteran bloodstock agent Anthony Bromley, the other half of her purchasing operation] will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zavateri will bid to give his trainer the second Group One win of her career in his next start in either the National Stakes, at the Curragh next month, or the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket in October. Havana Hurricane, meanwhile, is being aimed at the Group Two Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster\u2019s St Leger meeting in just over two weeks\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
And all the while, their trainer will continue her meticulous search at the yearling sales, looking for a nice horse at the right price. \u201cBloody hard\u201d it might be, but who would want to bet against Eve Johnson Houghton sifting another golden nugget from the auction ring before the year is out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eve Johnson Houghton has saddled three Royal Ascot winners, including a Group One, in the past eight years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-100942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}