The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 19, 2026

A vertically oriented black-and-white photograph depicts a jockey with a light skin tone racing a horse toward the left. Caught mid-stride with hooves off the ground, the horse wears a white hood and a saddle cloth marked with the number 2. Leaning forward, the jockey wears light-colored racing silks and goggles. Below them, a dark hedge and white railing line the track before a vast, blank gray sky.

Horse Race, Big A G19A

1964

Phillip Leonian

(American, 1927–2016)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 35.6 x 27.9 cm (14 x 11 in.)
Gift of the Leonian Charitable Trust 2024.112
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

When trotting, a horse at one point has all four legs off the ground.

Description

Phillip Leonian’s image captures the second just before the horse’s fourth leg goes into the air. Freezing the motion makes the weight of the huge animal seem balanced as gracefully as a ballet dancer on point. The picture evokes Eadward Muybridge’s famous photograph of 1872 proving that all four of a trotting horse’s legs come off the ground at one time, made to settle a wager placed by industrialist Leland Stanford.
  • {{cite web|title=Horse Race, Big A G19A|url=false|author=Phillip Leonian|year=1964|access-date=19 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2024.112