TEARS OF GLORY AS AGENT TRIUMPHS
THE going was practically soft by the time the Johnson Houghton family tears had deluged the winner’s enclosure. Behind the sentiment lay a story so remarkable it could have pinged straight off Ian Fleming’s golden typewriter, a cameo worthy of 007 himself. For Accidental Agent, 33-1 victor in the Queen Anne Stakes, takes his name from the title of the autobiography of trainer Eve Johnson Houghton’s maternal grandfather. He was Major John Gilbert Goldsmith DSO MC, and a mighty hero he was, too. Fluent in French, Goldsmith was a British agent in the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. Codenamed ‘Valentin’, he was parachuted into France on three missions and captured by the Gestapo. Under armed arrest, he escaped by shuffling along a window ledge at the Hotel Continentale in Paris. Eve remembers little of her grandfather save for his voice and the scent of his hair tonic. She was three when he went to Hong Kong, six months before his death in January 1972. Accidental Agent, bred by Eve’s mother Gaie — Goldsmith’s daughter — was once the horse nobody wanted. At a yearling sale, no buyer could be found and Eve ended up bidding £8,000 to take him back. But yesterday, by half a length, he became Eve’s first Royal Ascot winner. It honoured the work of her father, Fulke, in training 10 winners here between 1965 and 1988, and that fed into the emotion of the day. Eve took over the family stables from Fulke a decade ago and this win honoured a rich heritage. Three of her grandparents were trainers, including Goldsmith and Helen Johnson Houghton, the first woman trainer. ‘Unbelievable,’ said Eve after the win over Lord Glitters. ‘I can’t believe it. I thought I was tilting at windmills. I dreamed of finishing third. ‘I must apologise to the poor people sitting in front of me and mum — they will be deaf because there was an awful lot of screaming. You might need to man the lifeboats for all our tears.’ As with Eve, it was jockey Charlie Bishop’s first Royal Ascot and first Group One winner. A Mick Channon employee, Bishop, 24, is enjoying the most fruitful run of his young career, knocking on 50 winners already this season. Eve added: ‘I had a tiny bit each-way at 50-1 to pay for the party. Come on. This horse loves Ascot and had a chance. I said to mum, “Whatever happens, I have got him here as well as he can be. If he’s good enough, he’s good enough”. ‘I’m so pleased for mum. And, as for my grandfather, well, he was an incredibly brave man.’