Some paintings begin with a quiet encounter: a turn of the head, a particular light across a horse's shoulder or a landscape worth remembering. A Moment in Time began with a name already known throughout the equestrian world and the responsibility of portraying a partnership people held close.
Hickstead was more than a successful show-jumping horse. With Canadian rider Eric Lamaze, he became an Olympic champion and one of the defining horses of his era. The pair won individual gold and team silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, then continued to earn major victories at the highest level of the sport. When Hickstead died at a competition in Verona in November 2011, the loss was felt across the international equestrian community.
In 2012, John Anderson of Rocky Mountain Show Jumping commissioned Kim Penner to paint Hickstead and Lamaze for a project promoted with Phillip Rozon. The assignment carried an unusual weight: Kim was painting a horse whose movement, intelligence and determination had been watched closely by riders around the world.
Painting a horse people knew by heart
Accuracy matters in every equine portrait, but Hickstead presented a particular challenge. Horse people knew his compact power, his expression and the concentration between horse and rider as they approached a fence. A generic likeness would never have been enough.
While the work was still underway, Kim spoke publicly about the pressure she felt. She was honoured to have been selected, yet fully aware of the many skilled artists who might have taken on the subject. She wanted the finished painting to carry both the physical truth of an elite athlete and the quality that made this partnership memorable.
The original was a 30 × 40-inch acrylic on canvas. Kim built the image through the layered acrylic technique she has refined throughout her career, developing the anatomy, light and atmosphere over many painting sessions.
The deadline demanded an unusually concentrated schedule. Kim told Horses All that she would ordinarily limit a painting session to four or five hours. During A Moment in Time, however, she worked a number of 12-hour days over several weeks. Kim and Glen photographed the painting's progress each day, recording its development from the underlying structure to the finished surface.
Those progress images preserve a side of the work that the final painting cannot show. A major portrait is built through repeated decisions: measuring a relationship between forms, reconsidering an edge, adjusting the balance of horse and rider, and returning to the reference until the whole image feels convincing.
The unveiling in Alberta
The completed painting was unveiled on June 11, 2012, at Goby's Bar & Grill on the Rocky Mountain Show Jumping grounds at Anderson Ranch. The London Olympics were approaching, but Hickstead's place in Canadian show-jumping history had already been established.
The original release included an announced edition of 500 original-size giclée canvases and 50 artist's proofs. Contemporary reporting noted that some first-run prints were signed by Lamaze at the unveiling. Proceeds were designated for First Leg Up and JustWorld International, connecting the project with organizations serving the equestrian community and humanitarian work.
Those figures describe the historical 2012 release, not current inventory. Collectors interested in the present status of A Moment in Time should contact the studio rather than rely on the original edition announcement.
A portrait of partnership
Every successful horse portrait has to move beyond markings and conformation. It must find what makes one horse unmistakable. In A Moment in Time, that identity lives not in one isolated feature but in the relationship between Hickstead and Lamaze: athletic ability, attention and trust held within a single image.
The project also demonstrates why reference, anatomy and lived knowledge of horses are so closely connected in Kim's work. Viewers may not consciously name every angle or shift of weight, but structural accuracy gives a painting credibility. Once that foundation is present, the work can reach for character, relationship and memory.
More than a decade after its unveiling, A Moment in Time remains an important chapter in Kim's career. It asked her to portray a horse already held in the collective memory of the sport—and to create an image that respected both the athlete and the partnership that made him legendary.
