T takes years of careful planning, investment and land management—not to mention a large slice of luck—to establish a successful stud farm. This the late Christopher Spence, a former merchant banker, senior steward of the Jockey Club and shrewd owner-breeder, achieved with some style at the stud farm he founded at his home, Chieveley Manor, near Newbury, Berkshire, in the early 1980s. Spence died, aged 84, in September 2021 and was described in his obituary as ‘a racing grandee’ and ‘a pivotal figure who transformed the administration of racing’. The first good horse to carry his emerald-green and black colours was Frontier Goddess, who won the Yorkshire Oaks in 1969 and was sold to
