Helen Johnson Houghton - Telegraph Gilles De Retz had been winter favourite for the race, but had run badly in the Greenham Stakes on heavy going, and went off in the Guineas at 50-1 (unbacked, it is said, by his trainer). "The Greenham made me realise how far from being fit Gilles De Retz was," Helen Johnson Houghton later explained. He was very lazy and did nothing on the gallops. But he did a lot more when trotting up the hill from the village, so that's what we did with him to get him fit.  Although Helen Johnson Houghton had trained the horse, he ran under the name of her assistant, Charles Jerdein, who later became an art dealer in New York - in her words, "selling old masters to old mistresses." Helen Johnson Houghton had begun training on her own account after her husband, Major Gordon Johnson Houghton, had been killed in a hunting accident in 1952. In those days, however, the licence had to be in the name of a male trainer - it was not until 1966 that the Jockey Club recognised women trainers after it had been taken to court by the redoubtable Florence Nagle. In an interview with the Racing Post in 2010, Helen Johnson Houghton recalled how she had felt about the lack of public recognition after she had won the Guineas: "Bloody maddening. It seems so ridiculous in this day and age, doesn't it? Beyond belief. But that's all in the past, and I no longer agonise over it. The twin sister of Fulke Walwyn, who become one of the great National Hunt trainers of his time, she was born Helen Marjorie Walwyn on November 8 1910 at Abergavenny. Her father was an Army officer and Master of the Monmouth Hounds. When the twins were young, their mother died, and they were looked after by a succession of governesses. Helen, who never went to school, was in her early teens when her father married one of these governesses, and, disapproving of the match, she left home and went to live with an aunt in Cheshire. She enjoyed point-to-pointing, and in the 1930s married Gordon Johnson Houghton. The wedding had been scheduled for 1936, but depended on their collecting from a gamble on a horse called Fan Mail winning a seller. Gordon decided to give the ride to the horse's stable lad, and everything looked rosy until the jockey, for no discernible reason, picked up his whip and Fan Mail suddenly veered off the course. As a result the marriage had to be delayed for a year. The couple trained in Cheshire before Gordon went to war with the Cheshire Yeomanry. On his return in 1945 they moved to Woodway, in Oxfordshire, which they bought from Francis Cobb, who had once taken his hunter to Aintree and jumped him round the course at dusk after the Grand National had been run. After Gordon's death, Helen's licence was held in the name of Col Dick Poole for a couple of years before passing to Charles Jerdein, and then to Helen's cousin Peter Walwyn. In 1961 her son Fulke took over the yard, sending out successful horses such as Ribero, Habitat, Double Form and Ile de Bourbon. The licence is now held by his daughter (and Helen's granddaughter) Eve Johnson Houghton. Helen Johnson Houghton is survived by her son and daughter. Helen Johnson Houghton, born November 8 1910, died December 4 2012