Peb cartoon for Spring/Summer 1959 meeting at Aqueduct | Courtesy Keeneland Library
Edited press release
The New York Racing Association (NYRA) and the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame will highlight the career and achievements of renowned animator Pierre “Peb” Bellocq during a ceremony at Belmont Park on Thursday. July 9, as part of the Stars and Stripe Racing Festival.
In 2020, Bellocq was selected to be a member of the Joe Hirsch Media Honors List of the National Museum of Racing. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the NYRA and the Racing Museum have yet to hold a public event to commemorate the honor.
The NYRA and the National Museum of Racing will honor Peb’s contributions in a variety of ways, including a race named in his honor, followed by a winner’s circle ceremony featuring Bellocq along with family and friends.
“The National Museum of Racing and the Hall of Fame would like to thank the NYRA for generously offering to host this wonderful day in honor of Peb, whose art and humor captured unique characters and excitement and thoroughbred racing scenes across generations,” said Brien Bouyea, Director of Communications at the National Museum of Racing and the Hall of Fame. “The racing world owes Peb a lot of gratitude because his life of outstanding work has brought so much joy to the sport.”
Bellocq, 95, was born in France in 1926. At the age of 19, the French racing magazine France Courses gave him national exposure by publishing one of his jockey cartoons. Bellocq signed the drawing as “Peb,” a signature that became his lifelong nickname.
Bellocq decided to move to the United States and in 1955 accepted an offer to work as a cartoonist for Morning telegram and its sister paper, Daily race formhe held the job until December 2008. Early in this career, Bellocq also produced political cartoons for Philadelphia. Questioner also work for Form. Bellocq has finally shifted its main focus to purebred racing.
Along with his work for Form, Bellocq has been commissioned by numerous racecourses to create vivid murals that capture the taste of the sport. At Belmont Park, he created a striking mural on the second floor of the clubhouse featuring a variety of racing genres. His large-scale animated collages became fixtures in Churchill Downs, Del Mar, Arlington, Oaklawn, Aqueduct and The Meadowlands.
Peb’s work also appears in this publication from time to time and his son RemiMy work appears every Friday on page 2 of TDN.
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This story was posted in News is shared and tagged Brian Bouyea, anime, caricatures, National Museum of Racing, New York Racing Association, Pierre Bellocq, Remi Bellocq.
