Where Legends Run: Lisa Palombo Paints the Spirit of Saratoga

A new collection captures the speed, color, and history of America’s most storied race course.

A race can be decided in less than two minutes. Saratoga has spent more than 160 years turning such moments into legends.

That relationship between a fleeting instant and an enduring memory is at the heart of Where Legends Run, Lisa Palombo’s new collection at Spa Fine Art.

Fittingly, the exhibition arrives during the Year of the Horse. Palombo has described horses as “majestic, free-spirited, and full of life,” adding that painting them reminds her of the strength she aspires to have. In this collection, that strength is expressed through charging thoroughbreds, brilliant racing silks, and unmistakable Saratoga landmarks.

A Race Course Built on Legends

Saratoga’s first thoroughbred meet was held in August 1863, barely one month after the Battle of Gettysburg. Organized by gambler, former boxing champion, and future congressman John “Old Smoke” Morrissey, the four-day meet attracted thousands of spectators. Its success led to the construction of a permanent grandstand at the present site of Saratoga Race Course.

The first Travers Stakes followed in 1864. That makes the Travers three years older than the Belmont Stakes and more than a decade older than the Kentucky Derby. It remains the oldest stakes race for three-year-old thoroughbreds in the United States. 

This history is not simply background information for Palombo’s paintings. It is part of what they depict.

Inside the Collection

Across Where Legends Run, Palombo approaches Saratoga from multiple vantage points. Some compositions bring the field directly toward the viewer, compressing horses and jockeys into a concentrated charge. Others broaden the view, allowing the Race Course’s striped rooflines, grandstand, barns, and surrounding trees to become part of the story.

Palombo creates movement through expressive brushwork and saturated color rather than literal detail. Turquoise, violet, coral, and gold move through the racing silks, thoroughbreds, and track, while drips, splatters, and layered strokes give the surfaces an energy of their own.

The architecture provides an important counterpoint. Saratoga’s familiar structures remain steady while the races unfold before them, creating a visual contrast between a place that has endured for generations and action measured in fractions of a second.

Together, the paintings capture different dimensions of the Saratoga experience: the historic setting, the force of the field, the anticipation of the charge, and the unmistakable atmosphere of race day.

A photograph can show the exact position of a horse in mid-stride. Palombo’s paintings show what that stride feels like.

An Artist Who Knows the Racing World

Equestrian painting has become an important part of Palombo’s professional career spanning more than 30 years.

She began studying at the Rhode Island School of Design at age nine and later graduated from RISD with honors. In 2023, the New York Racing Association commissioned her as the official Belmont Stakes artist for the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown victory.

Her painting The Country Was Cheering was subsequently exhibited at Saratoga’s National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Palombo is also an official Secretariat artist licensee. 

That experience is evident throughout Where Legends Run. Palombo understands equine anatomy, but she also understands that racing is more than anatomy. It is anticipation, strategy, atmosphere, and the possibility that the next two minutes could become part of sporting history.

Where the Past Keeps Moving

The title Where Legends Run reaches beyond celebrated horses.

The legends are also the people who devote their lives to them, the historic races that changed the sport, and the traditions families return to each summer. Saratoga itself has become legendary—a place where the past is not sealed away, but renewed with every racing season.

Palombo gives that history a contemporary pulse. Her paintings are distinctly Saratoga, yet their themes—strength, speed, courage, and possibility—extend far beyond a single place or season.

The meet eventually ends. The energy of these paintings does not.

Experience Where Legends Run

Spa Fine Art is proud to present Where Legends Run, an exhibition of new paintings by Lisa Palombo celebrating the beauty, history, and excitement of Saratoga Race Course.

On view: August 6–31, 2026
Opening reception: Thursday, August 6, from 6–9 p.m.
Location: Spa Fine Art, 376 Broadway, Saratoga Springs
Admission: Free and open to the public

A preview of the collection will also be unveiled online at 9 a.m. on August 6.

Join us to meet Lisa Palombo and be among the first to experience Where Legends Run during Saratoga’s celebrated racing season.