H&H interview Royal Ascot-winning trainer Eve Johnson Houghton
The first British female trainer of a Group One Royal Ascot winner tells Martha Terry about forging a path in a man’s world and her feisty grandmother
EVE JOHNSON HOUGHTON is due a ride in a supersonic jet. Back in 2000, her mother Gaie promised Eve and her head lad Will Reddy a trip in Concorde if she trained a Group One winner. Some 18 years on, that elusive winner is in the bag and Eve’s career is in full flight, but the jet plane has long since been grounded.
“She’s talking about sticking us in a hot air balloon instead,” laughs Will, still riding high on the success of Accidental Agent in Royal Ascot’s Queen Anne Stakes last month.
Gaie not only bred the trainer, but also the horse, which led to wildly emotional scenes in the winner’s enclosure.
“It’s fabulous, amazing, a wonderful thing,” says Eve, in her strong husky voice. “My mum has only one or two foals a year, so she’s very clever. And Accidental Agent is the sixth generation of a mare my father bought, and he’s named after my grandfather, who was in the Special Operations Executive in World War II — so Mum and I were highly over-excited, which is good as sometimes in Flat racing people don’t make a show of their emotions.
“He was 33/1, but everyone was delighted it was a newcomer, not just the same Coolmore Godolphin axis. I’m still waking up every morning thinking, ‘Did that happen?’ And not because I didn’t believe in the horse, as I knew he could win, but because things like that don’t happen to me. It gave hope to everybody, that you can have a Group One winner from seemingly humble beginnings.”
Eve’s racing pedigree is actually quite aristocratic, with her father and grandmother both having trained at her yard, Woodway, on the Ridgeway. Her ancestry is peppered with big racing names, such as Fulke and
Peter Walwyn. But with just 70 horses, she doesn’t have the ammunition of the bigger establishments. And female trainers are still fighting against the tide.
“It’s definitely still an old boys’ club to break into — blokes like to speak to blokes about their horses,” muses Eve, the first British female trainer of a Group One Royal Ascot winner. “But I’ve never really encountered sexism and it shouldn’t matter whether you’re male, female or gender-neutral. There just aren’t many of us women, but the ones there are are bloody good. There’s no reason we can’t be just as good if not better than the men. But you have to have the quality of horses, whether you’re male or female. You can’t put in what God took out.”
Eve’s grandmother Helen trained a Guineas winner, although unofficially, as women weren’t allowed to hold a licence.
“She was a force of nature, a bit scary, but
‘Training is still an old boys’ club to break into, but there’s no reason we can’t be just as good if not better than the men’
there was nothing she didn’t know about horses,” says Eve of the first woman to train a Classic winner. “She had a huge influence on me: she said, ‘If you want to do it, just go and do it, get out there’.”
Eve hadn’t always harboured dreams to emulate her illustrious relations — she lived in Fulham in her early 20s working in marketing, “blagging my way as an office manager — I was bossy”. But after her accommodation fell through, she ended up in Lambourn and eventually back at Woodway as assistant to her father, Fulke, until they reversed roles in 2007.
“Women didn’t train, so when I was growing up, it didn’t occur to me that I would,” she says. “Then, suddenly, I thought, ‘Why don’t women train? Why don’t I train? — so I did.”
BUILDING on a foundation of decades of top-class winners, Eve was optimistic from the outset.
“I wouldn’t want to be plodding around with 10 horses, but I never thought it would go badly — I just didn’t imagine it would go as well as it has,” she says.
I’m getting the sense that Eve is pretty used to winning in most fields — and if not, she’ll have a lot of fun trying. She’s hugely enthusiastic, modest yet gung ho, and she seems to sweep everyone else along with her in a great wave of positivity with absolutely no hint of self-satisfaction.
She was “blinking hopeless” at dressage in Pony Club, but “I always had wonderful ponies who charged round clear cross-country” — and she also won 20 races as an amateur jockey. She adores hunting, going out twice a week in winter. I suggest she’s probably a thruster.
“Well yes, but I don’t have much choice as my fabulous, brilliant hunter, Barney, is so strong,” she laughs. “I tried to open a gate once, but as I bent down to open it, he jumped it and we turned turtle. So we don’t do gates.”
She skis off-piste too — “anywhere and everywhere, as much as I possibly can” — usually with a group of jumps trainers, which doubles up as useful time to swap ideas.
She even replies to every tweet and email she is sent, maintaining this upbeat persona.
“You have to be positive on social media; no one likes a ranter, though it does make me cross when people think because they’ve had £2 on your horse they have the right to abuse you,” she says. “I had an email yesterday saying I’d employed a shite jockey and let punters down. So I calmly replied saying, ‘Thank you for your kind email, please feel free not to back the horse’.”
Eve is immensely appreciative of the base she has inherited, and it’s easy to see why as we sit in her sunken flowery garden, surrounded by harebells and foxgloves. Typically, she says she’s a “hopeless gardener, but loves playing in the garden”. A bay head looks down on us from the stable yard above, over a rose covered stone wall. She calls out to him: “Carlo, darling! Isn’t he beautiful?”
THIS is what makes Eve tick: the horses, all of them.
“I get almost as much pleasure winning a bad race with a bad horse as the good ones,” she says. “It keeps me awake at night if I think I have not done the best for that horse. But I hate the injuries; I can’t bear it when horses die — it breaks my heart every time.”
This time last year, Eve announced her ambition to have another Group winner and one at Royal Ascot.
“Boom, I’ve done that, shall I pack up and go home?” she jokes.
Instead, she’s eyeing up a second Group One for Accidental Agent in the autumn. She may not ever get that ride in Concorde, but she’s certainly going places.