(LEX 18) — The pandemic caused a lot of people to pursue hobbies they'd been putting off for years.
I recently met a farrier who decided to put his time to good use... chasing a dream.
Nigel Fennell started using his craft to create art and built two life-size horse sculptures out of steel. His third project used 4,608 mini Secretariats to capture one of the greatest moments in horse racing history.
The speed of a legend, the strength of steel, and the touch of the artist... all for the love of the horse.
"I bore the responsibility in my own soul to make sure I did him some justice," said Fennell, a highly decorated farrier.
"Me and my wife came to America for different opportunities in our work life," he said.
Difficulties in the Visa process, then the pandemic, produced too much idle time... and not enough work.
"I had a flare for art in school 35 years ago," he said. "Out of the darkness is how I came to build horses in steel."
His wife, Susie, pushed him to finally begin this dream project, Secretariat, like he's never been seen before.
"I used about a thousand feet of body frame, about an inch apart," she said.
And to fill that frame.. images, barely two inches in size.
"So I basically built him of thousands of himself, to represent a horse that's one in a million," Susie said.
They had his actual measurements to base the frame around that to get it as accurate as possible.
"The width of his chest, the length of his neck, from shoulder to his rump, from shoulder to his hip and from hip to hip," she said. "And then his famous 76-inch girth. He had such a huge girth, depth of his chest, cause at the time, no one knew it housed a 22-pound heart."
That heart, and his record times in all three Triple Crown races, gave America, and the world, something to cheer for and believe in.
Nigel consulted with jockey, Ron Turcotte... and used his measurements, too. Until the two can meet in person, they are molded from Nigel's hands. Ron has seen video of the final product.
"He said Secretariat is like riding an iron horse, and now, he's been built from iron," Nigel said. "I don't have an engineer's brain, so I'm not one who can sit down and do mathematical measurements."
So, instead, he used instinct, and what he'd learned since childhood. From leaning into the animals, putting his hands on their feet, legs... admiring their strength.
"To get every, as much as I can in muscle detail and prowess of movement... that was one of the most important parts to produce a Secretariat that was static, but looks as if it was moving at an incredible pace," he said.
Nigel kept very good records... he logged 1,360 hours building Secretariat.
He confirmed that for the rest of 2023, the sculpture will be on display at the Kentucky Horse Park, in the International Museum of the Horse. That's starting Wednesday.
