Christopher Spence

Christopher Spence,  a former senior steward of The Jockey Club, died on Monday  after a brief illness. An owner-breeder from his Chieveley Manor Stud near Newbury, he was 84.    Born in 1937, Spence became a Jockey Club member in 1986 and served as Chairman of The National Stud from 2008 to 2011. Also Chairman of the Racecourse Holdings Trust, Spence was a merchant banker by trade and one of the founding directors of the British Horseracing Board, among other important roles in the UK racing industry.    A former...

TOM MORLEY, TRAINER Favorite:  It's very rare that your family own, breed and train the winner of a Group 1 at Royal Ascot. But when Celeric (GB) (Mtoto {GB}) won the 1997 Ascot Gold Cup having been bred by my Uncle Christopher Spence, owned by he and my father, and trained by my uncle David Morley then to me there can be no bigger favourite. He was the horse that got me hooked, the best day out from school in the world was being able to go to Ascot that...