When trailing in last is an improvement
Accidental Agent did not trouble the judge but at least he left the starting stalls this time
He might not yet be Killing Eve, but he must be driving Eve mad. Trainer Eve Johnson Houghton saddled Accidental Agent for yesterday’s Qatar Sussex Stakes, with memories of the horse’s recent refusenik run at Royal Ascot still fresh in the mind.
On that occasion, he opted to remain in splendid isolation in the starting stalls as the rest of the runners in the Queen Anne set off, prohibiting any repeat of his triumph in the same race a year earlier. “The gates opened and he just stood there,” said jockey Charlie Bishop that day.
So yesterday connections were asking not how he might finish, but would he even start?
“He is a frustrating character,”
said Johnson Houghton before racing. “In fact he has got a bit too much character for his own good.
“Between the Lockinge in May and that race at Royal Ascot, we had him in a spa at home every day. I don’t know if he thought at Ascot, ‘Oh I’ll just stand in here, it’ll be lovely’, but that is a theory. Or perhaps something caught his eye. He looked like he had no idea that he was expected to run.”
Accidental Agent took his name from the book written by Johnson Houghton’s grandfather John Goldsmith, who was a Special Operations Executive agent in World War II awarded the Legion d’honneur and the Military Cross. “He couldn’t get in the Army, but was quietly very brave. Because he could speak French like a native, they recruited him for special operations.” Goldsmith escaped from the Gestapo by climbing out of a vent in the ceiling of his cell, and across a ledge three storeys up on the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris.
But could the horse named for him escape from stall one at the Goodwood starting line?
Bishop and Accidental Agent were second to arrive at the start, making stately progress along the rail, before the Group One winner and occasional equine statue decided to let off a little nervous tension by breaking into a canter.
Going behind the stalls under the watchful eye of Craig Witheford, a specialist in horses that have behavioural issues, he was loaded in last. “Give him less time to think about things,” said Witheford.
Former jockey Mick Fitzgerald, who was at the start in his role with ITV, said: “You’ve got to pull him back like an elastic band to get some energy into him, get his backside up against the entrance of the stall, but with a horse like this one he might not necessarily like that either.”
Accidental Agent went in without fuss. Whether pondering his spa, his Ascot shame, his trainer, or perhaps the war hero whose name he carries – admittedly unlikely – Accidental Agent was for a brief second alone with his thoughts. There was total silence in the warm South Downs afternoon.
The gates pinged open. For an instant, he hesitated. Might he once again fail in his mission? But something kicked in, and off he went, albeit a stride behind the rest.
Flat last he finished, but Accidental Agent had, at least, not betrayed his handlers. The honours may come another day.