A giant mural that depicts the 104 trainers who have saddled the past 133 winners of the Kentucky Derby has been added to the Churchill Downs clubhouse.
The mural (photos below) is by 81-year-old artist Pierre "Peb" Bellocq, the cartoonist and art director for The Daily Racing Form, and compliments a similar jockey mural that he painted in 2004. The mural, which measures 34 by 34 feet, is located on the 2nd floor of the clubhouse (when coming from Gate 1) by the Hoseshoe Bar.
I hope the next mural is of Kentucky Derby bloggers.
To complete the almost year-long project, Bellocq studied historic pictures of all the Derby-winning trainers, and even left room to add a few future trainers (like he did with his jockey mural).
No news on if Bob Baffert, Nick Zito, D.Wayne Lukas or Barclay Tagg find their likenesses flattering or not...
Notably, the father-and-son duo of Ben and H.A. "Jimmy" Jones are underneath the eight horses that they individually trained, and are holding a historic Courier-Journal with a front page headline that reads: Who Can Keep Up With the Joneses? Ben Jones trained Lawrin (1938), Whirlaway (1941), Pensive (1944), Citation (1948), Ponder (1949), and Hill Gail (1952) -- the most of any trainer in Derby history. The younger Jones trained Iron Liege (1957) and Tim Tam (1958).
While it may be hard to appreciate on Oaks or Derby Day due to the crowd, make sure to check out the painting during your next visit to the track.
A detail of the recent Kentucky Derby winning trainers.
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