Lot 55: Menasco, Milton - Miche at the Start of...

Miche at the Start of the Santa Anita Handicap , 1952 Imported from Argentina in 1947, Miche was part of a fourhorse package purchased by Muriel Vanderbilt Adams. The handsome gray became a favorite of Mrs. Adams, an American socialite and Thoroughbred owner and breeder known for her devotion to her horses. Miche proved very successful, winning 15 of 51 starts. He is shown here being readied for the Santa Anita Handicap with jockey John Covalli wearing the white and black-bar-on-sleeve silks that Mrs. Adams inherited from her grandfather, William K. Vanderbilt. The race was anything but easy. Miche and the major stakes winner Intent made simultaneous moves on the backstretch, with Miche on the rail. From the three-sixteenths pole onward, Intent and jockey Jack Westrope brushed, bumped, and finally slammed Miche against the rail, beating him by a length. With the use of the film patrol, the stewards disqualified Intent and named Miche the winner of the $100,000 event.

24"” x 30"

Oil on canvas

National Museum of Racing, “Equine Portraits, Sculptures and Histories” 1963. Illustrated in catalogue on pg. 83 (no. 186)

The British Racehorse, a magazine, November 1958, pg. 413

Mrs. John Payson Adams The collection of Mr. & Mrs. Walter M. Jeffords Sotheby’s, New York, Jeffords Sale, October 28, 2004, lot 77.

Signed, dated 1952