The Colors of Racing
Driving Home
2001: The Travers 132nd Running, Saratoga
More than anything else, with this image I wanted to create the feeling of movement and power. I put a small jockey atop a great horse and reduced the details down to the essentials. The eye follows the jockey’s form up to the top of the image, where the cap and crop send you back down again. Finally the rich brown of the horse sends you left to the girth and jockey and it all goes around again. I feel like I’ve just missed seeing the entire jockey—he’s just moving too fast. These are the silks colors and number of the 2000 Travers winner, Unshaded.
$40 / $50
unsigned / signed
Travers or Saratoga
Poster
17" x 33" Open Edition
Paper: Strobe 80 lb. dull cover
Six colors plus varnish
Typeface: Adobe Garamond
Giclée Print
Size: 8" x 14.5"
Paper: Stonehenge
Edition: 175 prints, plus artist’s proofs
Notes:
In my original sketches for the 2001 poster I actually drew two complete thoroughbreds side-by-side. I had drawn their nostrils flaring, manes flying and all their tack. I showed the two jockeys shoulder-to-shoulder, locked in combat. All eight hooves mid-air — or most of them anyway — and even the track surface and trees beyond. Then I stepped back and looked at it. It was so busy it made me dizzy. So I began to simplify the image, refining it until I could take no more away. I like this simple image so much more. You can see part of the original second jockey on the t-shirt design I did for this year’s Travers. The format for the shirt art is wider, so I was able to show part of the original background. I like it, too.
The inks for this poster were provided by INX International Inks, Inc.