The Breeders’ Cup Trophy is an authentic and totally faithful bronze reproduction of the Torrie horse. The original was created in Florence, Italy by Giovanni da Bologna, around the late 1580s. Each year the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships award to the winner of each of 14 races a garland of flowers draped over the withers of the winning horse and four Breeders' Cup Trophy presented to the connections of the winners.
The Torrie horse or Mattei horse is a bronze Renaissance anatomical sculpture of a horse, created in Florence by Giambologna in the 1580s.
The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Grade I Thoroughbred horse races, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. All sites have been in the United States, except in 1996, when the races were at the Woodbine Racetrack in Canada.
The horse is an ecorche, showing the muscles of the animal in detail. Its original purpose is unknown, but it may have been made as a study for the equestrian statue of Duke Cosimo I of Florence, cast in 1591. It has stood in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence since that date. The ecorche character gives the sculpture clarity and precision, combined with the grace and beauty of the living animal. This is evidence of a scientific as well as an artistic intention on the part of the artist and reveals the importance to him of the influence and example of Leonardo da Vinci. The most recent monumental equestrian sculpture in Florence, before that of Duke Cosimo I, had been da Vinci’s never-completed monument to Giangiacomo Trivulzio. The Torrie horse bears a close relationship to several drawings by da Vinci related to this project in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor. [1]
Cosimo I de' Medici was the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death.
Piazza della Signoria is an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio. It is the main point of the origin and history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political focus of the city. It is the meeting place of Florentines as well as the numerous tourists, located near Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza del Duomo and gateway to Uffizi Gallery.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and he is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter, and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.
Other artists, too, knew and learned from da Vinci’s study of the horse, but none came so close as Giovanni da Bologna to his vision of the beauty of the animal celebrated by art and science together. The original ecorche bronze horse of Giovanni da Bologna is part of the University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection in Scotland. The Edinburgh horse was acquired by Sir James Erskine of Torrie from the Villa Mattei in Rome, Italy in 1803. He bequeathed it to the University of Edinburgh with the rest of his collection of old master paintings and bronzes, and it came into the possession of the university in 1836. [1]
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582, is the sixth oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's ancient universities. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city of Edinburgh, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university. The university played an important role in leading Edinburgh to its reputation as a chief intellectual centre during the Age of Enlightenment, and helped give the city the nickname of the Athens of the North.
The Breeders’ Cup Trophy was cast from the original and was directly supervised and approved by the University of Edinburgh for the exclusive use of Breeders’ Cup Limited. The largest version of the trophy is permanently owned by the Breeders’ Cup Ltd, which displays it annually at the World Throughbred Championships venue. Replicas are presented to the owners of the winners of each of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships races every year. The breeders, trainers and jockeys of each winning horse also are presented with replicas of the Breeders’ Cup Trophy.
In 1984 equestrian sculptor Irene French of Dorset, England was commissioned to sculpt an 11 inch high replica of the ‘Torrie Horse’. She completed this commission in 6 weeks. It was then cast in bronze by the Morris Singer Bronze Foundry of Basingstoke, England. This became the trophy for the American Breeders Cup, awarded annually to the winners of each of the Breeders Races. The Torrie bronze was thought to have been used to teach equine anatomy in the Middle Ages. It is said that the artist George Stubbs used the classic stance of the Torrie Horse to best display the muscles in his famous equine anatomical drawings.
Following a precedent started almost one hundred years ago, many of this country's highly esteemed grade one races award of a blanket of flowers draped over the withers of the winning horse. In the Breeders' Cup all 14 division races are adorned with this time honored tradition.
The Official Flower Garland Provider of the Breeders’ Cup is Kroger Floral Design Center, located in Louisville, Kentucky, it creates each of the 14 Championship race garlands.
The official blanket of flower garland is made of the rare combinations of Beauty Asters, Golden Asters, Cremons and Catteleya Orchids, which are grown exclusively for the Breeders’ Cup. The Kroger Floral Design Center has created the garlands since 1988. They have silk replicas of the official Breeders’ Cup flower garland, at the Breeders’ Cup Racing Office at (859) 514-9422.
Each blanket has two wide saddle bag ends in an elongated pentagon shape that are adorned with a large purple circle emboldened with the Breeders' Cup logo and an embroidered script with the name of the race that was just won. The blanket is narrowed in the middle at the neck for ease of display over the horse and is topped with a full bouquet of both color Chrysanthemums with other floral embellishments. The blanket is 96" long from one end to the other.
Andrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was an Italian painter, sculptor, and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He apparently became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master, a goldsmith. Few paintings are attributed to him with certainty, but a number of important painters were trained at his workshop. His pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi. His greatest importance was as a sculptor and his last work, the Equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, is generally accepted as a masterpiece.
Giambologna — — was a Flemish sculptor based in Italy, celebrated for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style.
An equestrian statue is a statue of a rider mounted on a horse, from the Latin "eques", meaning "knight", deriving from "equus", meaning "horse". A statue of a riderless horse is strictly an "equine statue". A full-sized equestrian statue is a difficult and expensive object for any culture to produce, and figures have typically been portraits of rulers or, more recently, military commanders.
Kentucky Horse Park is a working horse farm and an educational theme park opened in 1978 in Lexington, Kentucky. It is located off Kentucky State Highway 1973 and Interstate 75, at Exit 120, in northern Fayette County in the United States. The equestrian facility is a 1,224-acre (4.95 km2) park dedicated to "man's relationship with the horse." Open to the public, the park has a twice daily Horses of the World Show, showcasing both common and rare horses from around the globe. The horses are ridden in authentic costume. Each year the park is host to a number of special events and horse shows.
The Breeders' Cup Turf is a Weight for Age Thoroughbred horse race on turf for three-year-olds and up. It is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States or Canada as part of the Breeders' Cup World Championships. The race's current title sponsor is Longines.
The Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf is a Weight for Age Thoroughbred horse race on turf for fillies and mares, three years old and up. It is held annually at a different racetrack in the United States as part of the Breeders' Cup World Championships.
The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.
Pietro Tacca was an Italian sculptor, who was the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity.
Horses have appeared in works of art throughout history, frequently as depictions of the horse in battle. The horse appears less frequently in modern art partly because the horse is no longer significant either as a mode of transportation or as an implement of war. Most modern representations are of famous contemporary horses, artwork associated with horse racing, or artwork associated with the historic cowboy or Native American tradition of the American west. In the United Kingdom depictions of fox hunting and nostalgic rural scenes involving horses continue to be made.
The decade of the 1490s in art involved some significant events.
Rick Rockefeller-Silvia is an equestrian athlete, equine breeder and former model.
Leonardo's Horse is a sculpture that was commissioned of Leonardo da Vinci in 1482 by Duke of Milan Ludovico il Moro, but not completed. It was intended to be the largest equestrian statue in the world, a monument to the duke's father Francesco. Leonardo did extensive preparatory work for it, but produced only a clay model, which was destroyed by French soldiers when they invaded Milan in 1499, interrupting the project. About five centuries later, Leonardo's surviving design materials were used as the basis for sculptures intended to bring the project to fruition.
The Kentucky Derby Trophy is a set of four trophies that are awarded to the winning connections of America's most famous race: the grade one $2,000,000 Kentucky Derby. The owner receives a gold trophy while the trainer, the jockey and the breeder win a silver half size replica of the main gold trophy. The trophy itself has been run for since the 50th running of the Kentucky Derby in 1924. Churchill Downs Race Course of Louisville, Kentucky has annually presented a gold trophy to the winning owner of the famed "Run for the Roses."
The Kentucky Oaks Trophy is a ceremonial trophy which is presented annually to the winner of the Kentucky Oaks horse race. Since the Kentucky Oaks is run on the Friday preceding the Kentucky Derby, the trophy presentation occurs on Friday evening, the evening before the Derby.
Each year the perpetual "Arlington Million Trophy" is presented to the winners of the Arlington Million in a national televised award ceremony. The Arlington Million Trophy is one that was commissioned in 1984 and stays on display at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Illinois year round. Arlington Park is owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated and the parent company lists the Arlington Million as one the country's most important races behind the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks. The names of the horse and the connections are included in the display.
The Fountain of Neptune is a fountain in Florence, Italy, situated on the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Made of marble and bronze, the fountain was commissioned in 1565 and designed by Baccio Bandinelli. It is the work of the sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati with some elements created by collaborators. For example, the bronze sea-horses are the work of Giovanni da Bologna, often called Giambologna.
Horse and Rider is a beeswax sculpture depicting a rider on a horse, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci c. 1508–1511. It was intended to be used as a model for a life-size sculpture, commissioned by Charles II d'Amboise, French Governor of Milan from 1503–1511. Charles II d'Amboise died in 1511, Leonardo died in 1519 and the monument to d'Amboise was never completed nor cast in bronze.