Thundering hooves certainly make noise. How so? They are metal shod ends to legs which look so slender compared to the body they hold aloft. The power in those legs. Thundering is the sound of the weight of the horse cutting the turf and soil below.

My grandfather (maternal side) loved the gee-gees. He’d watch on the television with the newspaper in hand. Later in life I lived just down from Brighton racecourse.  It fascinated me that they covered the road to the refuse tip with straw and turf everytime a race was on. Various works sweepstakes had different results!

Families in their cars with picnics. Children bored after the first race playing ball games. The horse could be heard as they approached.  Ground trembled. Nostrils flaring and their breath coming hard and fast the horses steamed by. Even the crack of silk as it flapped in the wind on the top of the hill and the backdraft of the movement.

I’ve visited Windsor, Goodwood, Ascot, York, Cheltenham, Hereford and Newmarket over the years. Sometimes trapped in corporate hospitality with a brief escape to the parade ring. Other times camera in hand getting as up close and personal as I can to the race.

Thundering

Oil on 60 x 60 x 2.5 cm linen canvas on hardwood stretchers. SOLD to a collector with two other horse racing paintings. You can buy a print here.

This was a very emotional explosion. It was one of the first paintings I did with palette knives. I’d watched the races and was ready to throw the image out of my head onto the canvas. The feel of the buttery oil as it was pushed back and forth to capture the sky and the grass was lovely. My head was thundering.

The horse came next and then the jockeys popped on top. As is always the case, some of the jockeys and horses seem to be distracted. I love the billowing silks. The fly-like eyes created by goggles. up on the stirrups, willing their steeds on.