Spring Tryout

When springtime comes, even an old horse’s vigor is renewed. In Spring Tryout, a humorous lithograph made after an oil painting of the same title, Benton fondly revisits an incident from his own childhood when he and a friend took an old horse for a bareback joy ride. The boys were no match for the horse, made unexpectedly frisky by the season. The would-be artist lost his grip and was tossed to the ground while his friend struggled to avoid a similar fate.