Before the Derby takes over Churchill Downs this Saturday with big stakes, big bets and even bigger hats, learn about the sculptor from Indiana who memorialized one of the sport’s most famous champions.
The story of the horse behind the statue is a tragic one. In 2006, Barbaro was on top of the horse racing world; he won that year’s Kentucky Derby by six and a half lengths. But just two weeks later at the Preakness Stakes, the crowd favorite broke multiple bones in his right hind leg.
That injury would spell the end of Barbaro’s career and, after later developing laminitis in all four hooves, also his life. Barbaro was euthanized the following January.
Following Barbaro’s death, his owners wanted to lay the horse to rest where he had become a household name: the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. From there, the owners had to decide, out of approximately 100 artists, who would produce the memorial. Artist, sculptor and Indiana native Alexa King was chosen.
Released in 2013, Muncie PBS affiliate WIPB released “Sculpting the Wind,” which sits down with King to discuss how the Barbaro memorial came together.
The special walks through how King, a lifelong fan of horses, was elated at the opportunity to pay homage to Barbaro.
“She lived and breathed Barbaro,” former Director of Communications for the Kentucky Derby Museum Wendy Treinen said in the documentary, “and in her proposal you could tell. I mean, she interviewed vets, she talked to horse experts, she looked at racing footage.”
Read: 'Barbaro' sculptor continues to turn history into art (via The Wisconsin State Journal)
Just as much as the special is a tribute to the horse that inspired it, the documentary is an inside look at how a statue of that scale is constructed and the materials and techniques that go into it.
“There is the challenge of making a unique, dynamic statue in the fashion that it would bring Barbaro back to life and bring back the people’s experience that they had with this horse,” King’s husband Eric Bolland told WIPB.
King was so dedicated to the project that she built each component of the piece and molded the clay by hand, all to make it a one-to-one representation.
“I’ll never forget that one day when I had the box with his bridle in it,” King said. “I pulled that out of there and it really sort of shocked me…it’s him, and it’s now time to make the statue as much as Barbaro could possibly be.”
To see how the statue to remember Barbaro was pieced together, you can check out the full presentation of “Sculpting the Wind: Alexa King and the Making of the Barbaro Memorial Statue” on YouTube and on WIPB.org.
Read: IU Bloomington Art Sculpture Learns from Its Interactions with People (via WFIU News)
