JC / Railbird

Photography

Racing in the DPLA

Double Trouble at Santa Anita (Los Angeles Public Library)

Depending on how you search, there are anywhere from 3,000 to more than 5,000 items in the Digital Public Library of America related to horse racing, such as the photo above, which depicts:

a beautiful black horse, identified as Double Trouble, and a man that may possibly be a trainer or handler. The man holds the horse’s rein with his left hand, and is holding a large, fluffy cat next to his chest with his right hand.

Because the web can always use more cats, more horses, and more racing, I remixed a bot at the community app building platform Glitch that tweets racing items from the DPLA. Follow along @racingpix.

Posted in Racing on March 10, 2018 / Tagged Archives, Bots, Digital Public Library of America, Libraries, Photography, Santa Anita

A Dapper Man

Tod Sloan, “great jockey, famed rounder, spender, one-time friend of millionaires and occasional toast of royalty,” on his return from Europe, 1898. The portrait is part of the Museum of the City of New York’s photography collection, much of which was recently published online. A quick search turns up approximately 150 photos of New York racing — including Sheepshead and Belmont racetracks — from the late 19th and early 20th century (via Kottke).

Posted in Miscellany on December 16, 2010 / Tagged Jockeys, New York, Photography, Racing History, Tod Sloan

Déjà Vu Eclipse

The NTRA, DRF, and NTWA announced the 2009 Eclipse award for photography this afternoon, and there was something about the winner (below right), taken by Jeff Taylor at the Blue Ridge Hunt Point to Point Races for the Winchester Star, that felt familiar. But what?

Oh, that’s it — a similar photo by Douglas Lees (above left) won in 2007.

This year’s winner is also a bit reminiscent of Matt Goins’ winning 2006 shot:

Goins won again in 2008, with a picture of jockey Frankie Dettori leaping from Donativum in the Breeders’ Cup winner’s circle.

Curious, that the Eclipse judges change each year, but that their taste for jocks in air — falling or jumping, falling while jumping — does not.

Posted in Media on January 8, 2010 / Tagged Eclipse Awards, Photography

Summer Beauty

The August issue of Vogue is now on newsstands and the magazine includes, as expected, a breezy feature on super filly Rachel Alexandra. The article offers little new information to racing fans (although I did enjoy reading this tidbit about the Preakness: “When Mike Smith, the jockey on Mine That Bird, rode up after the race to congratulate Borel, the highly competitive filly instinctively took off again”), but the accompanying photo is absolutely stunning. And possibly digitally altered? There’s no halter on her fine head:

Posted in Media on July 23, 2009 / Tagged Distaffers, Great Horses, Photography, Portraits, Posing, Profiles, Rachel Alexandra, Vogue