WHEN Eve Johnson-Houghton’s Zavateri and the Aidan O’Brien-trained Gstaad got down and dirty to fight out a thrilling finish to last month’s Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes at the Curragh it was an archetypal ‘David versus Goliath’ story with the British challenger prevailing by a head.

Rewind over a half a century to the same venue in 1968, one year after Eve’s birth, and both the narrative and the surnames are exactly the same.