The oval is still there, but the Metairie Race Course isn't.
Neither is the painting that immortalized the days when horse races were the sport of the day in Metairie. Perhaps the the most famous of those races, an 1852 contest between the race horses Lexington and Lecomte, would result in the renaming of a Louisiana town.
New Orleans painters Theodore Moise and Victor Pierson were commissioned to capture the spirit of what was then the Metairie Race Course in a painting titled, "Life on the Metairie." Read any historical reference about horse racing in New Orleans, and that painting likely will accompany it.
An image of that painting in a recent Curious Louisiana story piqued New Orleans resident Robert Leake's curiosity.
"I have special memories of going to the Fair Grounds Race Course clubhouse with my family and seeing the painting," he said. "It was a grand painting, and I remember stopping to look at it. I wondered if it was destroyed when the clubhouse burned."
Unfortunately, Leake's guess is correct.
"The original painting, which measured 56-by-72 inches and was created by Theodore S. Moise and Victor Pierson, was in possession of the Fair Grounds Race Course until it was destroyed by the devastating grandstand fire of 1993," writes Annie Johnson, editor of the New Orleans-based thoroughbred racing history blog, turfhistorytimes.com.
The 1867 painting, according to the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' 64parishes.org, "depicts 44 distinguished New Orleanians at the last meet of the Metairie Race Track." Moise painted his self portrait in the lower right corner.
Reylu Gutierrez on Surfer Dude make their way to the track for the 1 1/6 mile Lecomte race at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. The fairgrounds' clubhouse burned in 1993, which also destroyed the "Life on the Metairie" painting. A reproduction of the painting now hangs in the new clubhouse, seen in the background.
The painting was installed in the Fair Grounds' clubhouse in 1951. A reproduction now hangs in the new clubhouse.
"It was mural-sized," said Marney Robinson, director of Fine Art at Neal Auction in New Orleans.
As for its estimated value, Robinson said Neal Auction has sold only one of Moise's paintings, a portrait of Louisiana planter and state legislator Francis Dubose Richardson, for $20,000 in February 2020.
But, she added, in that same month, the auction house also sold the large painting, "Natchitoches," by Moise's son, John Campbell Moise for $165,000.
"That would probably be more comparable to the value of Theadore Moise's larger pieces like 'Life on the Metairie,'" she said. "We've never had any of his larger pieces come up for auction."
Now for an epilogue: As stated, the painting depicts the final contest at the race course, which was home to the exclusive Metairie Jockey Club.
The Civil War took its toll on the the course, part of which was converted into Camp Walker for army training. Efforts at postwar revitalization were unsuccessful.
According to Henri Gandolfo's 1981 "Metairie Cemetery: An Historical Memoir," a group "feeling that the old guard was not progressive enough withdrew and organized the Louisiana Jockey Club. They immediately developed the Fair Grounds Racetracks, still one of the great local institutions."
An aerial map of Metairie Cemetery, where tombs are arranged in the oval of what was once the Metairie Race Course.
They also attempted to bring in Charles T. Howard, director of the state lottery and sports patron, to breathe life back into the Metairie Jockey Club. But he was tied to the Republican party and therefore shunned.
So, on May 25, 1872, dissident Metairie Jockey Club board members sold their club shares to Howard and John A. Morris, who made way for the Metairie Cemetery Association to take control of the grounds.
Which is why the tombs in Metairie Cemetery are laid out in a racetrack oval.
Legend had it that Charles T. Howard is buried at the old track's finish line, but Jerry L Schoen III, director of community relations for Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home & Cemeteries, which oversees Metairie Cemetery, said that's a myth.
Schoen said Howard's grave is in close proximity to the finish line, but it's not right at the wide part of the track that would have been the finish line.
"It's a good story, but it's not true," he said.
We’re on a mission to answer the things about this state that have you stumped. Send us your question, your name, email address, phone number and town via this form or in an email to curiouslouisiana@theadvocate.com.
