You detect a hint of resignation mixed with a huge dollop of pride when Norma Huggins says of her husband: ‘‘Ron has a tendency to do mad things.’’
It is a reflection on an unlikely journey that has seen Ron throw himself headlong into a sport that he initially knew virtually nothing about.
Among the hundreds of winning horses he has owned, pride of place goes to Double Trigger who, 30 years ago, enjoyed a remarkable season landing the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, the first of his three Doncaster and Goodwood Cups as well as the Sagaro and Henry II Stakes.
But Huggins was not interested in just paying the bills and accepting the trophies.
He has also started and run his own stud, bred a Grand National winner, and immersed himself in racing politics, serving terms on the councils of both the Racehorse Owners Association and Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association as well as being Chairman of Retraining of Racehorses.
Huggins does not do things by halves.
The fruits of that racing involvement adorn the walls of his home in a quiet Somerset hamlet.
Alongside the extensive collection of long case clocks – another Huggins passion – are countless pictures, many of Double Trigger and his talented brother Double Eclipse, as well as Double Blue, the colt bred by the late Queen Elizabeth II and bought by Huggins in 1990, whose successes “cemented everything going forward”.
The most recent images capture the victory of the Charlie Johnston-trained Spirit Of Jura at Southwell on April 2, an addition made more memorable given it turned out to be the last success before the retirement of jockey Hayley Turner.
Carlisle and Desert Orchid influence
Sitting among the trophies is the prized image, snapped by an equerry, of the audience with the late Queen and Queen Mother in the Royal Box shortly after Double Trigger won the 1995 Gold Cup, while on a coffee table stands a large glass plate, the breeder’s prize Huggins unexpectedly received after I Am Maximus captured the 2024 Grand National.
Remarkably, none of these things might have happened but for Carlisle racecourse and, hard as it may seem to believe, Desert Orchid.
Ron played rugby into his 40s but was ‘‘starting to get slower and injured every week’’.
The search for a new hobby looked to have borne fruit when, while based in Cumbria for a couple of years in his work for Kimberly-Clark, the US multinational company best-known for its Kleenex and Huggies brands, Ron took Norma and children Alexis and Simon for a day out to the local racecourse.
Huggins recalls: ‘‘We had a good day out as a family so I started thinking this could be interesting and then we watched a TV programme about Desert Orchid on Channel 4 at Christmas in 1989.’’
It all seemed so easy on TV. Buy a horse, breed a champion and you didn’t need to be a millionaire to do it.
Norma says: ‘‘The rest of us would think, ‘That was a lovely story’, but Ron sat there and thought, ‘I can do that. I’ll buy a mare’.’’
Having acquired Lady Attiva, a filly once owned by Sir Peter O’Sullevan, from Andrew Spalding at Hedgeholme Stud, ten miles from Scotch Corner, Huggins used the one connection he had to the equine world.
His sister and brother-in-law owned Welton Stud, renowned for its eventing horses. Mating Lady Attiva with grey stallion Welton Crackerjack may have seemed the ideal route to produce the next Dessie, but the flaw in the plan was Crackerjack was not a thoroughbred.
Mark Johnston and I were a meeting of minds
It may have been a false start but the product of the union, Welton Lady, went on to become young event horse champion at Burghley before eventing internationally for Ireland.
Huggins was hooked and drew up a shortlist list of potential trainers.
In August 1990, he travelled to Middleham to meet Mark Johnston, who had just over 40 horses at the time and was making a name for himself.
‘‘It was sort of a meeting of the minds,’’ Huggins recalls. ‘‘Mark was ambitious, and I asked him a million questions. He answered them all and didn’t make me feel stupid because I was still learning.
‘‘My saying at the time was ‘if you reach for the stars you won’t come up with a handful of mud’ – and he was of the same philosophy.’’
The meeting was the catalyst for buying Double Blue at the first yearling sale held at Ascot on October 1, 1990. Double Blue looked to possess a modest pedigree. His sire was Town And Country while his dam Australia Fair, a mare gifted to the Queen by the people of Australia for her Silver Jubilee, had turned out to be disappointing.
Looked after at a local farm in Kent, when Johnston travelled down to see him, he advised that Double Blue wouldn’t make a two-year-old and that he should be kept for a year to grow and mature.
To give Huggins an interest in the short-term, Johnston bought him Jumby Bay, a quirky gelding who delivered Huggins’ first success in an all-weather hurdle race at Lingfield in January 1992 with Adrian Maguire riding.
Double Blue proved more than worth the wait. He made a successful debut at Hamilton on April 1, 1992, and just over three weeks later had won his first four races. By June, he was finishing second to Red Rosein in the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot.
In all, Double Blue ran 68 times, both winning and finishing second 12 times and third seven times. His name would provide a theme through Huggins’ ownership.
Horses he has subsequently raced include Double Honour, winner of a Listed race in Germany and runner-up to Persian Punch in the 2001 Goodwood Cup before successfully switching to jumping, Double Quick, winner of the 1995 Dash at Epsom, and Double Diamond, winner of the 1996 Swiss 2,000 Guineas.
Many raced with Johnston in the colours of the Middleham Partnerships, which Huggins ran, and inevitably the best known were Double Trigger and Double Eclipse.
A statue at Doncaster commemorates Double Trigger’s achievements at the South Yorkshire track – and he even had a train named after him.
Arguably, his most memorable performance came when he beat Double Eclipse in the 1995 Goodwood Cup.
We were looking to find a Group 1 sire who had produced top-level winners but was out of fashion
A flashy chestnut with a broad white blaze, Double Trigger had been bought as a yearling for 7,200 Irish punts at the Orby Sale.
His looks made him a natural to be named after the palomino pony ridden by Roy Rogers, the American singer and actor known as the King of Cowboys.
When that wasn’t allowed, the Double prefix came in handy.
Huggins says: ‘‘Mark was fantastic in that I went to the sales with him and learnt. I had read the classic books – Bloodstock Breeding by Sir Charles Leicester and all the Federico Tesio stuff – and it was all about breeding Derby winners.
‘‘Like today, I couldn’t afford to buy superstars, so we were looking for a way of competing at a lower price. I have always done my racing out of taxed income.
‘‘What Mark and I discussed was a way to find a Group 1 sire who had produced top-level winners but was out of fashion. Ela-Mana-Mou [Double Trigger’s sire] was in that category. I looked at all the Ela-Mana-Mous at the sale.’’
Twelve months later, Huggins returned to the Orby Sale and paid 17,500 Irish punts for Double Eclipse.
In the build-up to Double Trigger’s debut at Redcar in September 1993, expectations were low with Huggins admitting he was just ‘‘plodding up the gallops’’.
He won by ten lengths in track record time and then followed up just over a month later with victory in Newmarket’s Zetland Stakes.
Frustratingly, Double Trigger’s three-year-old reappearance was delayed until the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York in August after he was kicked on the gallops by 1992 Ebor Handicap winner Quick Ransom.
Huggins was determined to support him as a sire
But it turned out be a blessing in disguise. A crack at the Derby may have been lost but Double Trigger had matured. He finished third to Moonax in the St Leger and won the Leger Italiano to set up his memorable 1995 campaign.
When he eventually retired to stud, Huggins was determined to support him as a sire, having set up Selby’s Farm Stud between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks.
In typical Huggins style, he was hands-on at the 40-acre farm with half a dozen mares.
When not working for Kimberly-Clark, he could be found driving his tractor around the paddocks or masterminding the marketing campaign for Double Trigger, who stood at the East Burrow Stud Farm in Devon of John and Sarah Haydon.
Selby’s Farm enjoyed breeding successes, including Double Trigger’s son Ikorodu Road, Jukebox Jive and Double Whammy, but external factors did for it by 2015.
Huggins says: ‘‘We made a profit in our third year and then the 2008 recession with the financial crisis was a nightmare. The middle and bottom market just disappeared.
‘‘During that period in the early 2000s, 50 per cent of studs stopped trading and we were one of those because you could not make the finances work.’’
In an agreement struck with HMRC, a list of assets and prices were agreed, and Huggins sold some of his mares back to himself so that he could carry on as a hobby breeder. But he concedes: ‘‘It was extremely amicable with HMRC but at the same time I felt we had failed a bit. It was disappointing.’’
Yet Huggins’ greatest breeding success was yet to come. It was the result of an ambition shared with long-time friend George Tiney to breed in France.
Polysheba, bred by the Wertheimer family, was bought on a freezing January day for €7,500 at an Osarus mixed sale at Clairefontaine racecourse in 2014.
Sent to Authorized, who was standing at Haras de Logis in Normandy, the result was I Am Maximus, winner of the 2024 Grand National for Willie Mullins and JP McManus and runner-up to Nick Rockett in this year’s race.
I got a real kick out of it
Huggins explains: ‘‘The intention was to retain him but shortly after he arrived, George got lung cancer. He was treated but it came back. He decided, when it got to the yearling stage, that it was not sensible for him to carry on with a horse in training, so we sold him.
‘‘You do think what might have been, but I am delighted JP has got him now because he has done so much for racing.
‘‘The race last year was just incredible. I got a real kick out of it and feel proud because these things are hard to do.’’
Not surprisingly, the old chestnut of racing’s prize-money has been a frustration for the former ROA and TBA council member, but he does take heart from a recent development largely funded by the Levy Board.
‘‘I was on the ROA council at the time Peter Savill was there,” Huggins says. “He was very pro-active in trying to drive prize-money, but the reality is very little has changed. It is essentially because the racecourses control the fixture list and the advertising revenue.
‘‘We have the lowest contribution by bookmakers to the levy in any country and because we can’t establish an effective pool system, that is very unlikely to change.
‘‘But self-help initiatives like the Great British Bonus scheme are great for racing and can be transformational in terms of the effect it has had on the prices of fillies at the sales, both Flat and National Hunt.
‘‘The contribution is serious on the prize-money coming in. There is £5m a year and our own experience with Spirit Of Jura has been fantastic.
‘‘She has won three GBB races with a contribution of £50,000. Sixty-five per cent of that goes to owners with the balance shared out to the trainer, breeder, jockey and stable staff. It is a win for everybody.
‘‘The only thing is that you must win these races because it is only to winners, but that has contributed £32,500, nearly a year’s training fees on the Flat.
‘‘It has really got people talking. Trainers are very interested in the concept and owners increasingly are looking at fillies at the sales.
‘‘Expansion of the GBB approach is the way forward. If you take horses that are winning, it puts you virtually on a par with the French system, the difference being you must win in Britain whereas in France, the French-bred owners’ and breeders’ prizes go down further.
‘‘GBB can be a game-changer. Everyone is desperate to win the races we have been in, which also makes it more competitive and fun. This scheme can perk up interest in breeding and ownership.’’
There is no need to perk up Huggins’ interest in the sport.
He currently owns three horses outright – Spirit Of Jura with Charlie Johnston and Western Charm and Double Dragon with Anthony Honeyball – with small shares in 13 other horses trained by Honeyball, Johnston and Ben Clarke.
The two syndicate horses with Johnston run for The Originals, ten owners who have been with the family stable for at least 20 years.
Huggins, it seems, has stamina to match his best horses and his ambition has not been dulled. An old friend might even help.
He says: ‘‘I would love to have a Group or Graded winner again and it would be brilliant to have another good stayer.
‘‘Western Charm is a mare by Frontiersman and her dam Charmaine Wood is by Double Trigger. If she does okay, I will go back and breed from her.’’
“You couldn’t help but love Trigger”
It is no surprise that Ron Huggins describes Double Trigger as ‘‘the horse of a lifetime’’.
The Mark Johnston-trained stayer, who won 14 of his 29 races, swept the board in 1995, winning the Gold Cup, the first of his three Doncaster and Goodwood Cups plus the Sagaro and Henry II Stakes.
The racing public loved him; his defeat of year-younger Double Eclipse in the 1995 Goodwood Cup went down in history as the first time full-brothers had finished first and second in a Pattern race on the Flat.
Huggins, who reveals he turned down an offer of £500,000 for Double Trigger before his Gold Cup win, recalls: ‘‘The 1995 Goodwood Cup was extraordinary. I thought the three-year-old allowance was very strong but Double Trigger just pulled out a bit more that day.
‘‘It was very strange because I was trying to be very even-handed with the Middleham Partners who I owned Double Eclipse with, but when they came together I did start shouting for Double Trigger!
‘‘He was such a character. I was really proud of them both, but you couldn’t help but love him.
‘‘Together I think they both helped re-establish the staying races and horses like Kayf Tara, Persian Punch, Yeats and Stradivarius have followed.’’
Three different jockeys rode Double Trigger to victory in the Goodwood Cup – Jason Weaver, Michael Roberts and Darryll Holland – and Huggins also has fond memories of the third win in 1998 when he rallied to beat Canon Can by three-quarters of a length.
Huggins says: ‘‘The third Goodwood Cup was incredible because, by this time, people thought he might be a bit over the top. In the race, commentator Jim McGrath, who became a good friend, said, ‘Double Trigger is going back, he can’t give anymore’.
‘‘But, at that moment, he picked up the bit, charged through and won. It was a great ride from Darryll.’’
One of Double Trigger’s few poor runs came when he was sent off favourite for the 1995 Melbourne Cup.
Huggins relates: ‘‘The Melbourne Cup was strange. There was an irregularity on his blood test before the race and there was a big question whether he would be allowed to run.
‘‘I always feel that maybe he was got at because he ran so badly. Immediately afterwards, it was as if he had not been in a race, but it took him a long time to recover when he got back to England.’’
