May 7 - Flower Alley

I've already bored you over the years telling my role in getting Flower Alley to Three Chimneys Farm so I won't bore you with that other than to say, "Would there have been a Kentucky Derby winner named I'll Have Another without my paint brush being involved?"

I was told by Joan Pletcher, trainer Todd Pletcher's stepmom that Eugene Melnyk wasn't happy with a piece of art made by NYRA of Flower Alley in the Travers, but she smiled and said that Eugene said, "So, I hired the best to get it right." I looked at Joan almost pulling it out of her mouth. "Yes, he meant you."

But even that wasn't completely smooth sailing. When I originally painted this, Johnny V had his whip raised high as he was coming down the stretch. Eugene said that his daughter (Anna who the Anna House for New York backstretch workers is named after) would not like the whip so, a little quick trickeration and Johnny V whip disappeared, and his hand and arm transformed into a jubilant "we're number one!"

The history of this painting and its travels only begins here but Flower Alley will always be a special horse to me.