Peyton - Painter of Porch Geese
- Dawn Hartfelder
- Jun 27
- 16 min read
May 26, 2026 - For most of April, our workshop looked exactly as it always does when we are in full production, when orders are stacked higher than they should be and there is never quite enough time to feel caught up no matter how early the day begins or how late it ends. The room itself carries a kind of permanent disarray that is not neglect so much as evidence of constant motion. Paint cans are everywhere, lined along the edges of tables and tucked beneath counters, their lids never quite sealed as tightly as they should be because they are opened and closed so often that perfection becomes impossible to maintain. Brushes sit in jars of water that have long since lost any transparency, the liquid inside them layered with memory, each tint and swirl a record of something that once had a clear beginning and now exists only in residue and sediment.
Across every surface there are geese in various stages of becoming, some still nothing more than pale cast stone waiting for identity, others partially transformed into something recognizable, their surfaces marked with uneven coats of paint that suggest feathers without fully committing to them, and still others finished and standing with a kind of quiet confidence that only comes after they have been made into something the world will recognize as belonging on a porch or a step or a garden wall where they will be looked at and briefly smiled at before becoming part of someone else’s daily life.
The radio plays constantly in the background, not because anyone is intentionally curating it but because silence feels wrong in a space like this, and so whatever station last found its way onto the dial remains, drifting from one mood to another without warning or apology. There are moments when 90s alternative music fills the room with a kind of nostalgia that feels both comforting and slightly sharp at the edges, as though it is remembering a version of life that no longer exists in quite the same way, and then there are moments when more modern voices come through, voices that speak with an emotional clarity that feels almost too direct, as if they are saying things aloud that people used to only think privately. Sometimes it is Taylor Swift, sometimes Olivia Rodrigo, sometimes something older that none of us acknowledge but all of us recognize, and it all blends together with the sound of brushes tapping against glass jars, water being stirred, cardboard boxes being opened and closed, and the faint tearing sound of tape being pulled too quickly when someone is trying to finish something before moving on to the next task that is already waiting.
Peyton was there every day during this time, moving through the workshop with a kind of quiet attentiveness that never draws attention to itself but is always present in the smallest details of what leaves the room. If you have ever purchased one of our geese over the last several years, there is a very real possibility that you have already held something she painted without knowing it, because she is not the face of the brand and she is not the voice that speaks publicly, but she is one of the hands that make the work possible, the one who understands how a slight shift in a line can change the entire expression of a face, how a color that is only slightly too heavy can make something feel less alive, how a small imperfection can sometimes be the very thing that makes a piece feel real rather than manufactured. She notices what others overlook, not in a dramatic way, but in a steady and consistent way that makes her presence essential even when it is not explicitly named.
In April there was nothing that suggested the way everything would change. There was no warning that could be identified in hindsight as a sign we should have recognized, no obvious fracture in the routine that would later reveal itself as the beginning of something serious. It began, instead, with something so small that it almost feels offensive in retrospect that it would lead anywhere at all, a stubbed toe while she was gardening, a simple accident that happens constantly in ordinary life and is usually forgotten within minutes. There was a small cut beneath the toenail, something she cleaned immediately because that is what you do when you are careful and attentive to your own body, and then life continued in the same direction it had already been moving, without interruption or suspicion.
Ten days passed before anything began to feel wrong, and even then it did not arrive in a form that suggested urgency. It began with jaw pain, the kind of discomfort that fits easily into familiar explanations and does not immediately suggest danger. TMJ, stress, clenching during sleep, something related to tension that can be addressed later when there is more time to think about it. But it did not remain at that level, because what followed was not improvement or stabilization but escalation, a slow tightening of the body that seemed to move from one area to another as though it were being drawn inward by something invisible. The stiffness that began in the jaw spread into the neck and back, and movement itself began to feel unfamiliar, as though the usual coordination between intention and muscle response was no longer working in the way it always had before.
Eating became difficult in a way that was hard to explain to anyone who was not witnessing it directly, followed by drinking, followed by the simple act of relaxing muscles that seemed unable to release once they had engaged. We moved through the system that is supposed to provide answers in moments like this, through primary care and specialists and emergency rooms, through two different hospitals where each evaluation seemed to land on a different explanation that never quite aligned with what was happening in front of us. TMJ, anxiety, muscle tension, stress response, words that should have clarified the situation but instead created a widening gap between what was being said and what was being lived, because at home the progression continued regardless of interpretation, as if language itself was no longer able to keep pace with the body it was trying to describe.
By the end of April, Peyton could barely eat at all, and drinking had become an effort that required focus and time and determination in a way that no one associates with something as simple as hydration. The ordinary assumptions of health began to dissolve, not suddenly but gradually, as if reality itself was becoming less reliable the longer we looked at it. There is a particular kind of fear that develops in circumstances like this, not the sharp immediate fear of an accident, but something slower and more corrosive, something that builds in silence and begins to reshape the way you interpret every detail, until even ordinary observations start to feel like evidence of something larger that has not yet been named.
On the night I brought her to my home because I could not stand the thought of her being alone, the house itself seemed to change character in a way that is difficult to describe without sounding as though the environment was participating in what was happening, but that is how memory preserves it, not as neutral space but as atmosphere. Outside, everything continued as it always does in spring, the air carrying the smell of damp earth and new growth, the faint sound of insects beginning to return, the quiet persistence of life that does not stop for human crisis. Inside, however, everything narrowed into a single room, a single body, and a single unfolding reality that no longer responded to reassurance or explanation.
Her body began to spasm in a way that I had never seen before and did not understand in any framework I had available to me, not as trembling or shaking but as complete and involuntary rigidity, muscles tightening with a force that seemed to override every attempt at control. Her back arched, her jaw locked, her entire frame would become fixed in positions that looked impossible to sustain, and then release only enough to begin again, as if the cycle itself was beyond interruption. In those hours there was no sense of time in any normal form, only repetition and waiting and the increasingly clear realization that whatever was happening was not going to resolve itself through rest or patience or reassurance.
The next morning, everything shifted into something final and defined when we arrived at Morristown Medical Center and the word tetanus was spoken aloud, not as speculation but as diagnosis, and in that moment the story that had been uncertain suddenly became something else entirely. It became rare, it became serious, it became something that required immediate intervention and ICU admission and treatments most people never imagine needing to understand. She was given tetanus immune globulin, placed on a ventilator, sedated deeply enough that her body could no longer continue the cycle of spasms that had been consuming it, and the world outside that hospital room ceased to matter in any practical sense because all of life collapsed into the boundaries of that space.
The ICU does not resemble life as it is normally experienced. It does not follow the rhythm of days or nights in any meaningful way, because it is always illuminated, always active, always filled with the presence of machines that speak in beeps and alerts and alarms that seem to belong to a language designed for urgency rather than rest. Nurses move through it with practiced steadiness, their presence both calming and unsettling because it reinforces the seriousness of every sound, every number, every change in rhythm on the monitors that line the bed. And in the center of it all is a body that is no longer participating in ordinary consciousness, suspended instead between sedation and intervention, held there by medical necessity while everyone around it learns to live in a reality that is defined entirely by what those machines report.
And somewhere in that environment, sitting in a chair that was never meant to be lived in, watching every fluctuation in light and sound and number, I began to understand that there are experiences that do not fit into normal memory because they are not meant to be processed in real time, only survived, and later, when distance finally allows it, slowly translated into language that can be shared without breaking again.
Twenty-three days passed in that place before the next phase began, and even now, long after discharge, recovery is still not a finished idea but an ongoing process that continues to unfold in ways that are not visible from the outside, measured not in announcements but in effort, not in summaries but in the daily work of rebuilding strength that was taken away by something so small at the beginning that it could have been overlooked entirely.
And through all of it, the workshop still exists, and the geese still exist, and Peyton’s hands are still part of the work, even as those hands continue to recover along with everything else that was interrupted that spring, and nothing about the life we returned to is quite the same as the life we left behind when all of this began.
Fast forward to 1989. I graduate high school in June, turned 18 that late summer, and by autumn, on October 4th, the most famous horse of all time, Secretariat, died. He was 19. Even people who’d never seen a race knew his name. A veterinarian told the media that the post-mortem evaluation had revealed something extraordinary: his heart weighed an estimated 22 pounds, which was more than double the average horse’s heart. It was perfectly formed - not the least bit diseased - just giant. Built to run. Built to win. Built, it seemed, for something more than just a horse. Built for legends.
It wasn't until few years later, on campus in my Anatomy and Physiology 301 course, I was able to fully appreciate the news of Secretariat's big heart. We were presented with various specimens in class - frogs, pigs and lab mice. But one day, an actual real-life horse’s heart was brought into the class. Enormous. Bigger than I'd ever imagined. Imagine the size and weight of perhaps a medium-sized dog or maybe a toddler. I had a daughter, my big heart, Nicquelle at this time – and she was this size. The professor explained how this was the “engine” of a creature whose power output was nearly four times that of a human. In fact, one horsepower - the unit - is based on the energy needed to lift 550 pounds one foot in one second. A healthy horse can generate 15, even 20 horsepower at full gallop.
Now double that for the case of Secretariat.
I didn’t grow up around horses. You’d think I did, the way I obsess over racing silks and historic bloodlines, but no. My only brush with the sport at this time was getting dragged along to the Meadowlands Racetrack by a pack of degenerate teenage friends. They didn’t care about horses. They never left the betting booths. The place smelled like stale beer and old hope. It was dark... loud... sticky. I didn’t even know where the stables were, and honestly, I was too intimidated to go look. I had no idea I was standing in the same space where legends had galloped.
I didn’t know it then - but the stables were just beyond the concourse.
I didn’t know it then - but greatness had thundered down those same lanes.
I didn’t know it then - but I was in the presence of the big hearts.
...a flame may have been lit. But I didn’t know it then.
The Race That Made Our Hearts Skip a Beat
As I’ve already indicated, Secretariat was already a legend by the time I was learning to walk. But on June 9, 1973, he became something else entirely. That day, at Belmont Park, he lined up to run the Belmont Stakes, the longest and most brutal of the three Triple Crown races. He had already won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, and if he won this too, he’d be the first horse in 25 years to sweep the Crown.
"They're on the backstretch. It's almost a match race now.
Secretariat's on the inside by a head.” - Chic Anderson
But here’s what people don’t understand if they’ve never watched horse racing: the Belmont is a graveyard for favorites. That means the horses everyone expects to win—the fast ones, the flashy ones, the ones with the hype - often don’t. The Belmont is long: a mile and a half, the longest of the Triple Crown races. It's not built for early speed; it's built for stamina, for pacing, for heart. Horses that blaze through the shorter Kentucky Derby and Preakness often hit a wall at Belmont. Their legs go heavy. Their breath shortens. They falter in that final stretch while the long-striders—those with rhythm, reserves, and resilience—come surging forward. In other words, the Belmont doesn't care about your odds. It asks one question: what’s left in your heart?
But Secretariat didn’t fade.
He exploded.
Chic Anderson’s voice cracked through the television speakers, astonished and breathless:
"They're on the turn, and Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 and four-fifths. Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a TREMENDOUS MACHINE. Secretariat by 12, Secretariat by 14 lengths on the turn!"
From the gate, he took the lead. And not a small one. He pulled away like he was racing ghosts. The farther he ran, the faster he went. His stride was so long and effortless that his jockey, Ron Turcotte, just sat still—he wasn’t asking the horse for more. Secretariat was giving it freely.
When he crossed the finish line, he was 31 lengths ahead—nearly the length of a football field. The crowd was screaming. The announcer’s voice cracked with disbelief. The final time: 2 minutes, 24 seconds. A world record that still stands.
It was so much more than a win. It was a moment when a living creature transcended the sport. No one had ever seen anything like it.
And they never have since.
"Secretariat is all alone!
He's out there almost a sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the horses!
Secretariat is in a position that seems impossible to catch!"
- Chic Anderson
But Secretariat didn’t do it alone.
Ron Turcotte, Secretariat’s jockey, wasn’t the loud kind. He came from a tiny town in New Brunswick, one of 14 kids in a logging family. He was supposed to be a carpenter. Ended up at the track walking horses just to make a little money—and somehow, he became one of the greatest riders of all time.
He didn’t learn in some elite racing academy. He learned the old way—by watching, by trying, by listening. And that’s what made him special. He listened.
He didn’t try to control horses. He connected with them. Trusted them. Especially this one.
That day at Belmont, the world watched with clenched fists—but Ron never pulled on the reins. He never asked Secretariat to slow down. He felt what was happening underneath him—that enormous stride, that boundless drive—and he let him go.
Trust like that takes ‘big heart’ to fly with.
And Ron flew.
And then there was Penny Chenery, Secretariat’s owner. She was no one’s underdog. A mother of four, so her heart had already quadrupled too, she stepped into the world of Thoroughbred racing without the pedigree of her male peers—but what she lacked in credentials, she made up for in clarity, courage, and cunning.
When her father, Christopher Chenery, who had built Meadow Stable, had fallen ill, everyone told Penny to sell. Cut losses. Walk away.
Brave heart, she didn’t walk away.
She rolled up her sleeves and took over the operation—flying back and forth from her home in Colorado to Virginia and Kentucky, learning every inch of the business, asking smart questions, and refusing to be patronized.
Bold heart, she didn’t just save the farm—she positioned it for glory.
She faced down male-dominated boardrooms and bloodstock agents who dismissed her. She wore her Sunday gloves to meetings, smiled, and then made history behind the scenes.
Sweet heart, making legends.
And before Secretariat ever set foot on a Triple Crown track, Penny brokered one of the boldest financial moves in the sport’s history: she syndicated Secretariat for $6.08 million. Not out of greed—but necessity. It was how she secured the farm’s future, locked in ownership, and protected what her father had built. It was strategy. It was stewardship. It was, in every sense, big-hearted.
And then there was Lucien Laurin.
A fiery French-Canadian with silver hair and a sharp tongue, Lucien wasn’t supposed to be the guy. He was nearing retirement, content to coast on a long and respectable career. But Penny called him in, and something about the colt hooked him. He agreed—reluctantly, maybe—but it didn’t take long for him to see what others missed.
Secretariat was too big, they said. Too pretty. Too wild. All flash, no grit.
Instinctive heart - Lucien didn’t buy it.
He saw more than beauty—he saw power. Precision. Potential. And he understood something that would become critical to the story: this horse couldn’t be trained like any other. His stride, his build, his temperament—it all demanded something different.
Heart on fire - Lucien fought for that difference.
He pushed for a training schedule that wasn’t standard. He clashed with expectations. He didn’t care about tradition. He cared about the heart. The literal one, yes—but also the fire behind the eyes. The willingness to work. The refusal to fade.
He didn’t train Secretariat to win the Triple Crown.
He trained him to become the only horse in history who could win it like that.
Anderson’s words spilled out like the crowd’s disbelief:
"Secretariat has opened a 22-length lead!
He is going to be the Triple Crown winner!
Here comes Secretariat to the wire.
An unbelievable, an amazing performance!
He hits the finish 25 lengths in front!"
But the final margin was even greater—thirty-one lengths. A number that doesn’t even feel real.
He stopped time that day. All hearts skipped a beat then – and still do when watching the replay.
No one watching could ever forget what it looked like—this animal, this legend, flying down the stretch, as if every ancestor in his bloodline had been born for this exact moment.
Secretariat didn’t just win the Belmont Stakes.
He defined it.
And in doing so, he left behind a legacy so large, it could only be carried in a 22-pound heart - the biggest physical heart racing had ever seen—but the biggest heart in the truest sense of the word.
You can’t win a Triple Crown without it.
The Big Heart (continued...)
The Love Story That Painted a Legacy
I’ve painted four lawn jockeys in the silks of Secretariat now.
Iconic as they are - blazed into our memories - you’d think they’d be easy to paint.
But no. Among the most challenging I’ve ever done. From the striping down the sleeves to the perfectly (ehh, never turns out that way) squaring up of the boxes of checkers - all the way to selecting the right blue. One commission insisted it was more navy. Another said it had to be lighter than the royal blue I selected. And still another requested a Kentucky Derby logo emblazoned across the back.
Challenge… upon challenge.
But every time I paint those famous silks, I hear hoofbeats. I feel heartbeats. I hear the roar.
I know I’m not a legend like Secretariat. Or Ron. Or Penny.
But I paint for those legends.
I take your winning spirit - your drive, your story - and I do my best to inscribe it in paint on stone. A forever piece that will outlive us all - your great-grandchildren can tell your story long after the last race has been run.
How did my heart get here—painting lawn jockeys?
It started with a love story.
(to be continued)
Want more stories from the track—and the lawn?
Thinking about a custom lawn jockey to match your silks? Find us at your favorite track or schedule a delivery to bring your colors to life.
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By Dawn Hartfelder
Dawn Hartfelder is a Marketing Analytics Specialist at Sweet Media and an MBA candidate at Arizona State University. A veteran of New Jersey’s largest nonprofit organizations, she’s fluent in navigating chaos and cutting through noise.
She is also—perhaps more notably—the world’s leading lawn jockey painter, bringing equestrian sport’s most iconic colors to life in cast stone. Her expertly crafted jockeys honor the legacy of champions from Secretariat to Zenyatta, blending artistry, heritage, and reverence into every piece.
Her latest blog, Big Hearts at Belmont, weaves a heartfelt love story—of horses, of history, of legacy, and of the deep passion that keeps the sport alive.
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