Horses

Rachel Alexandra, center, on her way to becoming the first filly to win the Preakness Stakes since 1924. Photo by Steve Helber. A.P.

It's been a great month for horse racing in America with the historic victory of Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness and the unpredictable win of the 50 to 1 long shot MIne That Bird in the Kentucky Derby. I'm not a big horse racing guy - it all happens too quickly for me - but I'm a huge fan of the backstory of the races and especially the photos that show up in the paper the next day, the best ones looking like great 19th century history paintings.

Surprisingly, no-one seems to have made much of a career of photographing racehorses or races while painters from Stubbs to Duffy to Sir Alfred Munnings made it their bread and butter. So there's an interesting idea or opportunity there.

In the meantime, three pictures by Matthew Stockman from this year's Kentucky Derby, below:

Aaah - America the beautiful! And, below, an uncredited picture that came up from my Google Image search: