Lot 69: Philip Blacker, Born 1949, Flanders Mud, Bronze,

Philip Blacker, Born 1949, Flanders Mud, Bronze, Edition 2 of 6, 185cm.; 72¾ins high by 150cm.; 59ins wide by 55cm.; 21½ins deep, Philip Blacker was born in 1949 and was educated in Dorset. On leaving school he became a steeplechase jockey and rode professionally for 13 years, being placed in the Grand National on several occasions and riding 340 winners. It was during this time that Philip developed his latent enthusiasm for sculpture. Under the guidance of Margot Dent, a former pupil of John Skeaping, he devoted as much time to sculpture as he could spare from his riding and his first three editions, all racing bronzes based on The Grand National, sold out quickly. In 1982 he retired from the saddle to concentrate full time on sculpture. , Philip Blacker's first one-man show was held at the Tryon Gallery, Cork St, London, in November 1983, and was hugely successful. Initially his work concentrated on capturing the authenticity and movement of horse racing subjects. Since his retirement from the saddle he has moved on to include a wider subject matter and to experiment with technique. However his ambition was to work on a grand scale and the opportunity came when he was commissioned to create a life-size sculpture of Red Rum for Aintree Racecourse. Since the success of the Red Rum bronze, he has completed 26 further life-size or larger bronzes of horses, which now stand in Canada, Australia, France, Ireland, Barbados, Japan and the UK. In recent years his lifesize commissions included sculptures of the triple Cheltenham gold Cup winner Best Mate, Persian Punch for Newmarket Racecourse, a dressage horse for the New Equestrian Centre in Penang, Malaysia, and an eighteen foot high sculpture of a stallion for Saudi Arabia., also see front cover,