With a record-breaking season just completed, Eve Johnson Houghton believes she has assembled an even stronger team for 2015.

The trainer hailed the campaign as a breakthrough in a year when she sent out her best tally of 31 winners from her Blewbury stables, near Didcot, with her runners garnering an impressive £331,127 in win and place prize-money.

Those totals would have been increased but for Charlie Wells getting caught up in the contaminated food case, which saw him lose his victory at Chepstow after testing positive for morphine.

Although that saga may have been a low point for the trainer, it was far outweighed by the highs.

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What About Carlo was the standard bearer for the Woodway yard with victories in the Esher Cup at Sandown and a £50,000-added handicap at Epsom on Derby day.

Johnson Houghton, who held her annual yearling parade on Sunday, said: “We have had yet another wonderful season and the yard is going from strength to strength.

“I am really looking forward to next year and think we have a stronger team of horses to go to war with.”

What About Carlo, who has been gelded, stays in training and Johnson Houghton believes this season’s juveniles will graduate to be her best crop of three-year-olds.

They are headed by Room Key, who won on his debut at Salisbury and went on to finish third in the Vintage Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, and Plymouth Sound, another to score first time up at the Wiltshire track.

Johnson Houghton has the Free Handicap or the Fielden Stakes at Newmarket in April in mind for Derby entry Room Key’s return.

“It depends on the ground,” she said. “He needs firm ground.

“Plymouth Sound has been gelded. We are hoping he can progress.”

Johnson Houghton’s established string will be supplemented by a fresh intake of yearlings, and she paraded 12 of her 14 youngsters in front of an appreciative audience.

They range from sprinting types to middle distance prospects, and include the offspring of first-season sires such as star milers Canford Cliffs and Dick Turpin.

“They look like a nice bunch of yearlings, with some shares still for sale,” she said.

The trainer was particularly sweet on a bay colt by German stallion Sabiango, a three-time Group 1 winner.

“I fell in love with this horse without having an owner,” she said. “He is a beautiful specimen.”

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