One for the record books

Brown Jack not only won six consecutive times in Ascot’s Queen Alexandra Stakes, but was also the model for one of only two finished sculptures by Sir Alfred Munnings. A cast of it made top price at auction—as did a Canaletto at another sale

- Huon Mallalieu

IN 1945, Picture Post declared that Brown Jack was 'one of the most popular horses ever to race on the English Turf' and that fine judge Sir Alfred Munnings wrote that 'a more unassuming, kind or modest horse-character never lived'. Brown Jack’s six consecutive wins in the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Ascot remains unbroken after 91 years and he is still commemorated by the Brown Jack Handicap run at the King George Weekend meeting in July. He was further memorialised by one of only two finished sculptures by Munnings. The first had been the life-size memorial to Edward Horner at Mells, Somerset, which inspired the commission for this 21/4in-high tabletop bronze (Fig 2).

Brown Jack lived with Munnings for six weeks at Castle House, Dedham, Suffolk, now the Munnings Art Museum. He stood in the studio each day as the model was created, a task the artist recalled as his most difficult ever. Despite that, when the horse finally left: 'No human being could have left such a gap.' Five casts were made, of which two remained at Castle House, allowing the museum's trust the happy possibility to sell this one at Christie's without damage to the collection and resulting in $504,000 for the funds.

There is one other celebration of the great horse. Philip Larkin’s 1949 poem At Grass was inspired by a short film of Brown Jack and a fellow champion in retirement: