by Ed DeRosa

Churchill Downs put the finishing touches on the final resting place of 2006 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) winner Barbaro on Sunday when it unveiled a statue of Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s homebred Dynaformer colt winning the race.

Alexis King sculpted the statue, which sits outside Gate 1 near the Kentucky Derby Museum. Bouquets of roses tied with ribbons in the colors of the Jacksons’s Lael Stables surrounded the statue for its unveiling, which trainer Michael Matz and Dean Richardson, D.V.M., chief surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, also attended.

“This is it; I think we got it right,” Gretchen Jackson said of the statue. “I think if Barbaro were able to talk to us, he’d say, ‘I’m home at last.’ ”

Churchill purposefully placed the statue outside of Gate 1 so that anyone could visit it without having to enter the racetrack grounds.

The inscription under the statue quotes Olympic Gold Medal winner Eric Liddell: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Ed DeRosa is news editor of THOROUGHBRED TIMES