Family, heritage and land entwined with famed breeding dynasty

To drive up the oak-lined avenues of the Haras d’Etreham is to take a journey into the emotional scenery the French people hold closest to their collective heart: heritage, family, and perhaps most importantly of all, the land.

The nation’s wine growers call it terroir. And here, just inland and in the lea of the Cotentin peninsula, it has bequeathed a special inheritance to the Chambure family and its historic mission to breed and raise racehorses.

The stud was purchased from the Comte de Foy after the second world war, a conflict that came to the very door of the farm, which lies barely five miles from one of the most infamous battle sites of the 20th century, Omaha beach.