 Godiva was sent into training with William Rose "Willie" Jarvis at his Egerton House stable in Newmarket, Suffolk.Godiva was a temperamental and difficult filly who often gave trouble at the starting gate, but she formed a strong bond with her teenage exercise rider Douglas Marks.When Jarvis's stable jockey John Crouch was killed in a flying accident in June 1939, it was decided that Marks would ride the filly in her races.