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Jun 2023

Last Updated: 30/06/2023

12-foot horse sculpture to be installed at the Great Yorkshire Show

by Lina Turner

| 30 Jun, 2023

A large horse sculpture has been delivered to the Great Yorkshire Showground.

The art work is made out of more than 600 welded horseshoes, collected from across Yorkshire.

The 750-kilogram piece is named 'Os II' after the Yorkshire slang word for horse and was craned into position outside the Yorkshire Event Centre today.

Its creator, Ollie Holman is a thirty-one-year-old artist from North Yorkshire, who has been welding since he was a teenager.

'Os II' will be displayed next to the Yorkshire Show's art show from Tuesday, July 11 to Friday, July 14 along with some of Ollie's other sculptures.

The sculptor cannot wait to see his work displayed at the event and said:

“I hope it stops people in their tracks and creates a big crowd around it. It will be nice to see people’s reactions,”

“The driving force behind this one was to improve myself as an artist and really capture the raw physical power of the horse in more detail. I layered up the horseshoes to give it that sense of power.

Ollie has made many horse sculptures, including another 12-foot piece which was sold to Cheltenham Race Course, but he is especially proud of his latest creation, which took five years to make.

Charles Mills, Director of the Great Yorkshire Show added:

“Ollie’s sculpture is a true epic that I have no doubt will turn heads at the Great Yorkshire Show.

“We are proud of the high-quality equestrian classes we have at the Show each year, so this is a very fitting sculpture to have in such a prominent position on the Showground.”

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