Humberto’s Belmont Prayer . . .
June 7th, 2010 Comments Off
Last summer when I was in Saratoga Chaplain Humberto Chavez asked me if I would do a favor for him. He explained that a couple years ago a photo was taken of him leading the prayer in the jockeys room on the day of the Belmont Stakes. Before the races started all the jockeys were still in white undershirts. I asked Humberto if he wanted as it was in the photo, or he wanted to feature the silks of the carried by the horses in the Belmont that year, or maybe he’d want to select specific individuals that had been supportive of his efforts . . . he chose the later. In the painting the silks represented are Cot Campbell’s Dogwood Stables, Marylou Whitney, Virginia Kraft-Payson, Michael Dubb, West Point Thorourhbreds, Joe Brockkebank, David Donk, Shadwell Farms – along with others on the clothes rack. There was one other set of silks front and center, the only silks that were worn in this year’s Belmont Stakes: WinStar Farm . . . whose Drosselmeyer would go on to capture the Belmont Stakes.
Before the Kentucky Derby I painted the four WinStar derby qualifiers, then WinStar’s Super Saver goes on to win the Kentucky Derby and now this. Does anybody see a pattern here? If I paint ‘em, they win! I’m not sure if I can charge more for that kind of “artistic touch” but it does make for fun conversation – Congratulations again to the people of WinStar and thank you to Humberto and all the people to the Race Track Chaplaincy that do so much to help the families that handle the day to day work required to make this industry go. 
