Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 500 x 500 mm (20″ x 20″)
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This work was commissioned by a harness racing follower who loved the champion Ribands, an Australian Champion horse in the 1950’s.
Ribands was born in 1948. On January 28 1954, the page 10 of the Sydney Morning Herald had a piece about Ribands becoming the first Australian pacer to break the 2 minute mile (1:58.7) at a Harold Park time trial and remained a record for 14 years.
Peppertree Farm, Australia’s leading Standardbred breeding facility at Cowra, provides an excellent biography of Ribands describing him as .. “winning over thirty races in his first two seasons of racing, never missing a place…. At five, he went undefeated through the heats of the Inter Dominion only to lose the final narrowly to Captain Sandy…. At seven, Ribands was taken to America where it was hoped the mobile barrier start would overcome his poor barrier manners. Although he did not meet the best of the American pacers, his five wins extended his career earnings to over eighty thousand dollars.”
The client had a lifelong association with Ribands, and provided the reference photographs for the racing image and an accompanying portrait of Ribands as an older horse.
