Eve Johnson Houghton

I am feeling just a little smug.  I have finally finished the Christmas cards and done the 5 to follow results and the Woodway Ramblings have gone out.  I am bound to have lost a sheet of addresses or missed someone off the list, but I have done my best.

This is a quick precis of what the newsletter had in it:

The end of another year and what a fantastic season we had. It was our best to date and we achieved the following:

27 winners

First Group winner

First treble

Over £200k in prize money

2 horses won Racing Post Bonus’

32 horses won or were placed from 41 individual runners

THE CHEKA flew the flag, he won a Group 3 at Haydock that not only was my first Group winner but was also the first Group winner for the owners. It was a fantastic day and I hardly needed my car to get me home! He was also placed in 7 other races and contributed over £65,000 to our prize money total. He is currently having a bit of well earned R&R at Hillwood Stud where he is being turned out and will come back into the yard at the beginning of next week.

Other highlights were having my first ever treble, also being top trainer at Brighton this year, managing to beat Richard Hannon into 2nd place; glad I could beat him at something! Another great day was when the old boy Phluke who went up to Redcar purely as a companion, popped up and won there. It was his 100th start and 14th win. As he was due to go to Stowe Fair to be sold as a 2yo, as his owner thought he was too small to win anything, this is a wonderful achievement.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff for their hard work through the year. As all trainers know we are nothing without our staff and mine are particularly good.