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Kentucky Derby

The Derby is big in Kentucky. I mean BIG. When I worked at the Lexington Herald-Leader, we’d spend weeks preparing for that first Saturday in May. One of the things we’d prepare was a special section that got tucked into the morning paper and handed out at Churchill Downs. I got to do two covers for the special section in my time there, and of the two, this is probably my favorite. I built it in Illustrator — or FreeHand, I don’t remember which — from multple photo references. (That’s Jessica Simpson in the fancy hat, tweaked here and there to not be so obviously her.) I wish I still had the original illustration file so I could post a higher resolution copy of this. Maybe it’s in that box of Zip disks I have from those days.