Novice champs Johnston and Vaughan set for green light

A masters degree in equine epidemiology and a year in Hong Kong researching racehorse injuries was teeing Anna Johnston up for a brilliant career.

Yet a long-held ambition to ride in a point-to-point proved so strong she headed home to the West Country to scratch the itch, and gained a notable reward for that decision when last season she won the national women novice riders’ championship. It was a breakthrough that, on the eve of the new season, she is hoping to capitalise upon.

Johnston is not expecting to ride this weekend, and reckons her season’s debut will come at Great Trethew in a couple of weeks’ time, but the runaway novice men’s champion, Vale of Glamorgan-based Ed Vaughan, is set to be in action at Knightwick and Dunsmore with a ride at each meeting. He partners five-year-old maiden Giddy Up, who is owned and trained by his father Tim, at Knightwick, and What’s Up Harry for Edward Rees at Dunsmore.

Somerset-based Johnston made a decision at the end of last season to quit her job working as a full-time groom for Paul Nicholls in order to ride out at several yards. She visits Anthony Charlton’s stable five days a week, pops in to Caroline Keevil’s yard most days and heads to Leslie Jefford’s stable in Devon once a week. Jefford has supplied nine of her ten wins in the sport, including four last season on his star mare Walkin Out (the duo pictured above).

Anna Johnston, who won last season’s Highflyer Bloodstock-sponsored novice women riders’ title (Ce)

Johnston, who is dating fellow amateur rider Tommie O’Brien, says: “I sat on Walkin Out yesterday for her first canter up the gallop and she felt well. She’s a fantastic mare. Leslie has some new horses in his yard from France and Ireland and I’m looking forward to getting on those.”

When Johnston gets a plan she tends to stick with it, even if it takes a while to reach fruition. She said: “I was going to buy a horse with a friend and get my first ride in a race at 18, but it didn’t happen until I was 25. Initially I thought I’d save some money to buy one while at university, then I went for a masters and thought I’d save some more money, then the offer of going to Hong Kong came up, then I flew home and bought a horse just before lockdown came in. Then the horse died while out in a field.”

She finally bagged that all-important first spin in May 2021, then the following January she rode into the winner’s enclosure on the Jefford-trained Broadclyst at Wadebridge. Now she is a novice champion with ambitions to ride more winners.

She says: “I’m out of novice riders’ races, but the grass roots series [restricted to riders with a limited number of winners] is a brilliant idea. It’s a stepping stone, rather than being chucked in against the very best amateurs.

“This is a sport where you are always learning, but last season I felt I had fewer frustrating rides. ‘Frustrating’ as in me making mistakes. Every horse is different, every track is different and there are so many combinations, but the more experience you get there are fewer unknown factors and it [race riding] becomes second nature.”

She accepts that rides have to be earned, and says: “There are very few spare rides now. Most yards have their own riders, so you have to be fully committed. I know I can go back [to a career connected to her degree], but I had to give this a go, and the more winners you ride the hungrier you get for more.”

Johnston has no family background in racing, but she grew up ten minutes from Bratton Down in North Devon, and remembers begging her father to take her there on race days. From child spectator to novice rider champion is some journey.

Vaughan’s background is totally different to Johnston’s for his father was a champion point-to-point rider in Wales who has gone on to make a successful career as a licensed trainer. Ed benefited when making his debut in the sport last season at the age of 16 on a selection of horses trained at home, although he had to be exceptionally good to gain 135 rides and partner 28 winners, plus another three (one a walkover) after the Bank Holiday Monday cut-off.

Ed Vaughan awaits the call for ‘Jockeys please mount’ with his father Tim (Ce)

Twelve months ago he made his pointing debut on the season’s opening day at Dunsmore, and now says: “I learned loads in my first two or three weekends. I went from riding one pony in a race every two or three weekends, to having three or four point-to-point rides each weekend. After the first winner [part of a November treble at Great Trethew in Cornwall] I started relaxing and stopped chasing everything.

“Halfway to three-quarters of the way through the season I was looking back and thinking ‘My God, did I really look like that on the opening day’. It was the way I looked in the saddle and over a fence that I felt I had progressed.”

Vaughan’s parents were happy to support their son to the hilt in his first season, but said he could not rely on similar numbers in year two. He says: “Most of the horses from last season have transitioned back under rules or been sold at the sales. I believe we will have about half a dozen horses at home for this season, with four likely to be aimed solely at pointing.

“Last season I gained experience and got my name out there, now I have to do it myself. I have loved every second of it – there’s no buzz like it. Riding in a race is brilliant, let alone riding a winner.

“I’ve been riding out at point-to-point yards and can’t wait for the season to start.”