PEB (Pierre Bellocq)
Back(French, b. 1926)
Peb was born in 1926 near Cognac, France, into a family that traveled the racing circuit from Bordeaux to Maisons-Laffitte. His father, Hillaire, was a trainer and later his brother, LouLou, was a jockey.
Peb came to America in the mid 1950's. He rendered promotional sketches for the Washington, D.C. International; Stakes at Laurel, worked for an advertising agency and then became associated with The Morning Telegraph, and its successor, Daily Racing Form. In time, he varied his approach by doing political cartoons for The Philadelphia Inquirer, which were widely reprinted in Europe and here, particularly inThe New York Times.
Peb been delighting American racing fans for over 50 years, making this an appropriate time to acknowledge the work of someone who never stops making this game a little more fun or interesting. In 2004 The Racing Form and the National Museum of Racing put together an exhibit entitled "Peb: The Art of Humor," that ran 18-month at the Museum, and The Form recently released a commemorative set of 23 new and original color sketches by Peb entitled "The Peb Star's of the Turf 50th Anniversary Collector's Portfolio."
Peb sometimes tackles sensitive issues in his work, like where a horse chastises his jockey for excessive whipping. "You made your point, Mac," he says to the rider. Some are just about fun, like the one where a man, showing off his paddock filled with horses with incredibly long noses, says, "I concentrate on photo-finish breeding." Sometimes he knows just what to say and draw, like the poignant cartoon that showed a saddened Foolish Pleasure in his stall the morning after the Ruffian match race, wearing a Ruffian pin.
With his, imagination, his wit and his innate ability to bring out the true character of a person in his drawings, Peb probably could have gone on to be one of the great political cartoonist of his time, and, for a while, he was getting pulled in that direction. For a few years, Walter Annenberg owned both the Racing Form and the Philadelphia Inquirer and had Peb pulling double duty, doing political cartoons for the Inquirer and racing cartoons for the Form. In the early 1970s, Annenberg sold the Inquirer and the new owners of that paper wanted Bellocq to stick to politics. It was an easy decision. Horse racing, not politics, was his life. "I was born into racing," said Peb. "My father was a jump jockey in the south of France and may grandfather was a trainer. His father was a breeder. I was among horses right from the start." So Peb devoted the remainder of his remarkable career solely to the Daily Racing Form, much to the delight of the paper's devoted readers.
Over the years, there have been so many classics. He says one of his favorites was the front-page cartoon for the 2004 Belmont Stakes, where he linked Philadelphia legend Smarty Jones to Philadelphia legend Rocky Balboa. He's always liked to link a race to current events.
Another love of Peb is amature racing Peb is also the founder and president of the Amateur Jockeys Association, an organization which fosters the love of competitive racing by those who ride purely for the enjoyment of the sport.
 Rachel Alexandra at the Preakness Saloon Sold |