A giant sculpture of a white Thoroughbred, 164 feet tall, will dominate one of the main entrances to Britain in three year's time after Mark Wallinger's design for an artwork at Ebbsfleet in Kent was announced the winner of a competition.
Taller than the Statue of Liberty, the white horse, to be made of fiberglass and reinforced concrete, will be placed next door to Ebbsfleet train station which is the first stop in Britain of the Eurostar trains from France and Belgium. The A2 road from the channel ports in Kent runs close to the site.
The cost is due to be £2 million (about US$3 million) and when built it will be the largest artwork in Britain.
Wallinger, 49, who won the Turner prize in 2007, has had fascination for horses and racing for a long time.
The first racehorse in which he had a share, called A Real Work Of Art, failed to shine on the track but his latest Riviera Red, a lowly-rated 9-year-old, won a mile race on Polytrack at Lingfield on Feb. 10, the day the artist heard that his Kent statue had been accepted.
He explained the thinking behind the sculpture: "It is a very English horse but we did it by importing three Arab horses (to form the Thoroughbred). It's a symbol of import-export and immigration and emigration. Humans find horses more beautiful than most other animals."
