“The horses are like hidden gems you find all over town,” says Sheryl Rice, a Lexington teacher at Tates Creek High School. “You’ll be driving around and see one you hadn’t noticed before.”

Designated an official project of the 2000 Lexington Kentucky Millennium Celebration, Horse Mania has reinforced the city’s reputation as the world’s thoroughbred capital by installing equine likenesses. There are 79, to be exact, in a slew of different colors, and all with fiberglass bases—in downtown locations from the courthouse steps and fountains of Triangle Park to perimeter auto dealership lots and even Blue Grass Airport.

Installed in late June, the horses themselves run an eclectic design gamut ranging from conservative to anything but. “We do have a few whimsical horses,” explains Steve Grossman, chairman of the Horse Mania Steering Committee, “but by and large, most of the artwork is more of a serious nature.”

For example, “People’s Delight” sports a colorful yet traditional coat of an all-Kentucky weave—the state bird, flower, and animal (cardinal, goldenrod, and squirrel) intertwined with Kentucky Derby and racing scenes—realistically rendered by Cincinnati’s Velma Morris. One of four artworks anchoring Triangle Park, across from Lexington’s Civic Center, “Galloping Gourmet” stands rife with luscious fruits and vegetables richly painted by Nancy Nardiello. And Nuchi Cain’s “Horse & Garden” is a virtual equine Discovery Channel, a sleek black steed live with gorgeous flora and fauna, all of near-photographic quality, down to zebra-design blinkers and a tiny mouse in racing silks weighing in on jockeys’ scales.

Modeled after Chicago’s Cows on Parade, where 268 bovine statues grazed in every corner of the Windy City, the horses were a natural for this horse-crazy town. But unlike the cows, which were produced as a turn-key project by a Swiss company, Lexington’s animals were birthed by the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council (LACC) as both an opportunity for a renaissance of public art and a tourist attraction.

“We wanted people to see what public art can do for downtown,” says Dee Fizdale, executive director of LACC, “and given how people have responded to these art horses, it’s very clear that they will come out to see art and enjoy downtown in a totally new way.”

“Pablo,” a contemporary creation by Picasso-inspired Lucinda Alston Chapman, certainly adds novelty to the metro area, as does “Mo,” a vivid mosaic by collage artist Carleton Wing. And color-splashed “Sweet Pea” stands guard on Main Street by the “Flying Horse of Gansu,” a stylized Oriental bronze presented to the city of Lexington last year by the people of China.

“There’s been such a reaction locally of ownership,” says Lord. “Businesses were convinced very quickly that it was a neat idea, so the community bought into the program in a big way. This wasn’t a tourism project or a city project. It was a community project.”

Two unusual and highly popular designs are “Mirrored Horse,” whose coat of mirror shards reflects both sunlight and scenery in front of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, and “Stonewall,” crafted by 1996 world champion sand sculptor Damon Farmer, which looks like a horse-shaped old Kentucky stone wall.

To generate statues, LACC held a competition that required each prospective artist to submit a design, five slides of previous work, and a resume. From 3,200 submission forms sent out, 688 designs were received for review by a jurying committee of two art gallery owners, two arts professors, and one working artist. Sponsors paid $3,700—$1,200 for a frame and $2,500 for an artist to fashion it.

After November 15, the horses will travel from their temporary summer and fall locales to Keeneland’s big stone Keene Barn, where they’ll be on display November 29 and 30.

Come December 2 the steeds of Horse Mania will go under the gavel at a sale to be conducted using the stately establishment’s own well-versed auctioneers and bid spotters.

The goal of LACC is to raise a million dollars, or an average of $12,600 per equine. Plans are to return 5 percent of the sale price to the arts organization itself, with half the remaining amount targeted to a fund for public art, and the rest to a nonprofit agency or charity of the sponsor’s choice.

Seats for the auction will be presold. A $75 ticket includes dinner, drinks, a pavilion seat, bid paddle, and sales catalog. For $50 you can get everything but an inside area seat, though you can bid from anywhere in the pavilion. Proxy bids are available for those unable to attend. Prospective buyers may contact LACC at (859) 255-2951.

The stars of Horse Mania will garner further exposure in an 80-page coffee-table book available prior to the sale.

“We’ll miss them when they’re gone. I hope they do it again,” says Sheryl Rice.”