In animation, anything’s possible. That includes gathering Australia’s greatest racing names - Phar Lap, Kingston Town, Tulloch and more - for one almighty face-off. The goal? To farewell current racing legend, Winx, with a simulated race that’d send tongues wagging in every Australian pub, social feed, regional and local paper.
The adjudicators? A panel of 15 esteemed experts. The commentator? None other than the legendary John Tapp.
The resurrectors? Jumbla.
“The most challenging part of this brief is that we’d never created a hypothetical horse race before in this amount of time,” lead animator Richard Shilling said.
“Having a client that was on board with the work required and supportive and understanding of this process was a huge help.”
The team first sourced a live horse race to get an idea of what they needed to achieve.
In order to meet the client’s deadline lead artist Richard then got to work on building the horses’ anatomy and movements, while the wider 3D team separately built and textured the racetrack. Both files were synced into one master scene that could be reviewed at the end of the day.
The Greatest Horse Race was broadcast live by the Daily Telegraph to an audience of over 71,000. While the pundits’ response to the eventual winner of the race has -- understandably -- been mixed, there’s no doubt about the client’s satisfaction with the work.
As for the results of the race itself?
See for yourself.