A racehorse commission – with a twist!

A Client Story

Cigarette card showing 1916's Derby winner Joe Childs on racehorse Fifinella.

With national hunt horseracing season just getting started, I thought I would tell the story of one of my more interesting, and pretty tricky, racehorse commission oil paintings.

Part 1 – The Brief

Zac got in touch with me via the ‘contact me’ form on my website back in October 2021, with an interesting proposition… He asked if it would be possible to paint 1916 Derby Winner, Fifinella (the Flying Filly) with her jockey Joe Childs. Joe Childs, won fifteen British Classics in a 35-year career, and was Sarah’s (Zac’s partner) great-grandfather (This is around World War 1!). This wasn’t going to be my usual racehorse commission!

Zac and Sarah were embarking on an exciting journey themselves, designing and hand-building their own luxury Scandinavian-style retreat, in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside. To honour Sarah’s incredible great-grandfather, they would name it after his incredible win on Fifinella. What better way to do that than with a bespoke oil painting of Joe on Fifinella.. only one problem…

I would not be able to visit Joe and Fifinella, as I usually do with clients, photographing the pair and carrying out some initial sketche. All we had as reference material for the racehorse painting was a cigarette card, and a few black and white photos of varying quality. Every artist’s worst nightmare!

I really loved this story so decided to take on the challenge. I explained to Zac that the piece would not resemble a photograph, it would be loose and we would keep the vintage feel of the cigarette card. Zac was completely open to whatever I thought was best… so we agreed we would give it a go!!

Part 2 – Artist by day, detective by night.

Embarking on my journey, late one night, I began trawling the internet researching the great racehorse Fifinella.

I had a tiny image of the cigarette card, and a few black and white photos of varying quality.. I was starting to feel a little apprehensive about the project I had taken on.

Zac is incredibly easygoing, a dream client, completely understanding the difficulty of the task he had given me. He had every confidence in my capable hands. I was pleased one of us did!

Feeling like an investigator on ‘Who do you think you are’, I signed up to all the thoroughbred breeding databases, racehorse blogs and forums, to see if I could find any better images of the pair. I was getting nervous.

After hours of searching… BINGO!

I found a photo of Joe Childs sat on Fifinella that I had never seen before! It was still black and white, but it had so much more detail than the others. Under closer inspection, comparing it to the cigarette card, both horse and rider were in identical positions! I believe this must have been the original photo used to create the cigarette card.

I was over the moon! There was enough detail here to create a tonal study for the painting,  just leaving me to recreate the colourings from other references… phew!

High-quality black and white photo of Joe Childs and racehorse Fifinella

Part 3 – Getting started

Finally I could get my paints out!

I approach different painting in different ways. As I was mainly working from black and white reference images, it made sense to me to start this piece in monochrome, then once the proportions and structure were in place add the colour after.

Monochrome underpainting, the early stages of this racehorse oil commission.

Part 4 – Adding colour

Adding the colour was tricky but fun. It really started to come to life. Colours are really important in the horse racing industry. The colours of the jockey’s silks show who owns the horse, enabling the viewer of the race to quickly work out, which horse it is and which jockey is riding. They can be incredibly nostalgic, transporting the viewer back to an incredible moment in horse racing history.

Work in progress, showing the stage in this racehorse commission where I begin to add colour to my oil painting.

Part 5 – The finished commission.

I couldn’t be happier with the end result. Considering the challenge that had been set, the painting came out just as I had hoped. Honouring both an incredible jockey and a fabulous racehorse.

Racehorse Fifinella and Joe Childs, the finished oil painting commission.

The finished oil painting is now framed and hanging in one of the most beautiful Scandinavian style shepherds huts I have ever stepped foot in, the Fifinella Retreat. If you haven’t already you must check it out… Im definitely going to be booking (it has a log-fired hot tub!)

Click here to see it for yourself!

Fifinella retreat. Gorgeous Scandinavian-style room with commission racehorse oil painting pride of place on the wall.

Are you thinking about your own racehorse commission painting? or maybe your dog or loyal pony?

Check out my commissions page for more information, or take a look at one of my recent blog posts ‘Commission Process’ which goes through the step-by-step process of commissioning your own equestrian oil painting.

..or simply get in touch. I love hearing client’s ideas and stories.

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