Secretariat Gets Buff

When visitors and adopters arrive at the Maker’s Mark Secretariat Center, they are greeted by a bronze version of Secretariat himself, looking over the Center’s paddocks. Just like our trainees, Secretariat needs a good scrubbing now and then to look his best, so once a year curatorial assistant Shannon Leva of the International Museum of the Horse, located in the Kentucky Horse Park spends a day waxing and buffing his coat. “This one is the most fun to do because it’s in such a beautiful area of the Park,” said Leva, who is responsible for cleaning all the bronze statues in the Park. She learned the art of bronze cleaning from Jenifer Stermer, Curator of Collections at the Museum, and says her first experience cleaning a statue involved climbing an eight-foot scaffolding to reach the tips of the Man O’War statue, which stands at the entrance of the Horse Park.