Get A Horse? DIA Finally Did

Epically delayed mustang sculpture finally installed at Denver International Airport.

Flight delays are not unfamiliar scenarios at airports, but the 16-year delay in installing a monumental fiberglass sculpture of a rearing mustang has got to be a record-setter. When Denver International Airport was under construction, Luis Jimenez, a sculptor from Hondo, NM, was commissioned to make a 32-foot sculpture for the Peña Boulevard approach to the terminal. While it was a work in progress, a section came loose from a hoist, pinning Jimenez against a steel support beam. He died in June 2006, leaving a widow, two sons and a largely unfinished, very large fiberglass horse. Susan Jimenez and her sons, Orion and Adan who were children when their late father began the work, completed it, and New Mexico painters Richard Lobato and Camillo Nuñez painted it using Jimenez's color scheme. The mustang has finally been installed at DIA -- 16 years after the airport opened. The photo shows it with its "receiving blanket" still draped over its hindquarters.