The turf | 5 July 2018

Let’s get the crowing over first. The returns from our Twelve to Follow over jumps last season were somewhere well south of disappointing but for those who kept faith the Flat season is bringing handsome recompense. Almost immediately, Hugo Palmer’s Labrega won at Haydock at 9–2. Then, in the very first race at Royal Ascot, the Queen Anne Stakes, Eve Johnson-Houghton’s Accidental Agent flew home under Charles Bishop, named as the jockey to follow this season at a whopping 33–1. ‘Stand by for a shower,’ said the emotional trainer after landing not only her first Royal Ascot winner but also her first Group One.

Accidental Agent was named after Eve’s grandfather John Goldsmith, a brave and much-decorated hero in the second world war Special Operations Executive, and was owned and bred by her mother Gaie. ‘She’s the little person crying somewhere,’ said Eve. And so she was, while also predicting that her absent husband Fulke, himself a trainer of ten Royal Ascot winners, would be shedding a few tears at home.