Man O´War

First Edition Print — Limited to 10

Giclée print on high-quality cotton paper, printed at the original artwork size (23x29 cm), with an additional 3 cm margin on all sides (total size: 29×35 cm).

Hand-signed, numbered and carefully packaged for safe shipping.

*Frame not included. Framed images are digital mockups created for illustrative purposes to show how the artwork may look displayed.

HISTORY:

Say "Big Red" and one name probably comes to mind: Secretariat. But the nickname wasn't his to begin with.

The original Big Red was born on 29 March 1917, and his name was Man O' War. He held on to that nickname for more than fifty years — and he earned every bit of it.

He ran twenty-one times and lost exactly once. It happened at Saratoga in August 1919, and it wasn't even his fault. Starting gates didn't exist yet: the colts lined up behind a webbing barrier and set off the moment the starter released it. He happened to be turned the wrong way when it went up, and he broke several lengths behind the field. He spent the rest of the race hunting them down one by one and was beaten by a neck at the wire, by a colt called — of all things — Upset.

He never lost again.

As a two-year-old he had already taken the Hopeful Stakes and the Belmont Futurity, the two biggest prizes going for horses his age. In 1920 he won all eleven races he entered: the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes — by twenty lengths and in world-record time — the Travers, the Miller, the Lawrence Realization. He never ran in the Kentucky Derby, simply because his owner chose not to enter him. And he did all of it under weights no trainer today would accept for their horse, with a stride that measured close to eight metres.

His dominance got to the point of being almost comical. Only one rival turned up for the Lawrence Realization, and he wasn't there to win — he was running for the place money. With nobody left to beat, his trainer sent him out to race the clock instead.

Eventually they matched him against the best horse alive: Sir Barton, the first winner of the Triple Crown. The two of them met alone, in Canada, in October 1920. Man O' War beat him by seven lengths and retired at the end of that season.

He lived to be thirty. When he died in 1947 his funeral was broadcast on national radio and thousands came to pay their respects. His groom, Will Harbut, had spent years showing him off to visitors who drove out to the farm for no other reason than to stand and look at him.

He rests today at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, buried beneath a bronze statue that greets visitors at the entrance. The base carries three words: MAN O' WAR.

Half a century later Secretariat came along, and the nickname finally had an heir.