Jockey weighing in after a race...

It was a miserable day in the San Francisco Bay Area. A strong Pacific storm had swept through overnight, dumping way too much rain. It was unusually chilly. Winds were so high that a traffic advisory urged all non-essential traffic to stay off the roads. So where was I? At Bay Meadows race track, taking photos of the jockeys and horses. That's "essential," right?

Tracks close only when conditions are life-threatening, so the competitors are out there in every kind of weather. If I was miserable, think how awful it must have been for the jockeys and horses. Wet and muddy, they were creating their own wind chill at speeds up to 35 MPH. As if that wasn't punishing enough, they also struggled with a freezing headwind down the stretch.

On days like this, jockeys wear several pairs of goggles stacked on top of each other. When the top pair gets dirty, it's pulled down to the neck to expose a fresh pair underneath. (See Detail 1.) That allows at least one half of the team to have clear vision. Pity the poor horses, who have no eye protection at all.

When I grabbed the shots I used for this painting, the sun had just broken through the clouds for the first time. The colors went from drab to amazingly saturated in the blink of an eye The wet yellow slicker worn by the Clerk of Scales was glowing. I snapped off several shots of jockeys weighing in before the sun disappeared again. None of them were very good, but I had enough bits and pieces so I could composite them into something usable back in the studio.

I don't always paint from photographic references, but when doing something this detailed, it's essential. I wanted to paint every little fold, every little speck of mud. Most of it was painted in layers, with tiny brushes, over a period of about 60 hours. Transparent watercolor was used in the traditional way, meaning that no white or opaque paint was used.

Why do jockeys weigh in after a race? To make sure they haven't "lost" any weight during the competition. The amount carried by each horse is assigned by track officials. Any deficit between that weight, and the actual weight of the jockey plus saddle, is adjusted with lead weights carried in the saddle pad. Weight slows a horse, so carrying any less than the assigned weight would be cheating. Officials record the weight before and after the race. A small allowance is made for mud picked up on rainy days like this.