"As early as I can remember, drawing and painting were things I just had to do. All of my spare time was spent with pad and pencil," Reeves wrote in Thoroughbreds I Have Known. "When I grew a little older, water colors were bought for me, then pastels and oils. My subjects were anything and everything, though horses seemed to interest me most."

Reeves's love of Thoroughbreds and horseracing can be traced to Belmont Park near his Long Island home. "It was September of 1933. I was thirteen years old and was taken to Belmont by an uncle, Edward Buhler, who had owned some racehorses a few years before. It was the day of the Belmont Futurity for two year olds, and at the time it was the richest race in the world, with a purse of $100, 000," Reeves wrote. "It was a miserable Saturday afternoon but I loved it anyway. The horse that won the Futurity was Singing Wood, owned by Mrs. John Hay Whitney. I was absolutely entranced and knew then that I was hooked on the colorful sport of Thoroughbred racing for the rest of my life."

The convergence of Reeves two passions - horses and painting - would shape his life forever and take him on a remarkable personal journey into the worlds of Thoroughbred racehorses and portrait art.

In 1941, Reeves graduated from the College of Fine Arts at Syracuse University. His aspiration was to paint horses; however, when the U.S. entered the war, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. The Navy used his artistic talent at the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, D.C., where he drew silhouettes of enemy aircraft for Naval Recognition Manuals. Reeves was commissioned as an ensign a year later and volunteered for an assignment overseas.

Between secret missions for Naval Intelligence in China, Reeves painted scenes in the countryside; his subjects were often local peasants and temples. While in Yunnan Province, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that an officer named Lt. Commander Bob Johnson was president of Roosevelt Raceway, the most successful harness racing track in America. Johnson liked his work and told Reeves to look him up after the war.

After returning home, Reeves embarked on a career as a painter of horses. He painted the top trotter of the day, the Hambletonian winner, Titan Hanover. Reeves showed the painting to Bob Johnson, the officer he met in China. After conferring with the Board of Directors of Roosevelt Raceway, Johnson purchased it and commissioned Reeves to paint five more.

Reeves received his first real break in 1947, when he was commissioned by J. Samuel Perlman, the editor of the Morning Telegraph and Daily Racing Form, to paint the Horse of the Year, Armed. When LIFE magazine published his painting of the champion Calumet Farm Thoroughbred in 1948, Reeves's talent was recognized nationally. Afterwards, he received several other commissions, including that of Gallorette, the champion race mare of the day. For the most part, however, Reeves recalled: "Commissions continued to come in slowly and spasmodically, and I worked hard to try to improve my technique. Like all young painters."

Reeves's style did gradually improve, but he also knew that he had to work on his backgrounds, skies, shadow, and light. During the 1960's the museums and private galleries of Europe became his study hall. "My trips to Europe," Reeves wrote in Thoroughbreds I Have Known, "were just as much to expose myself to the works of the old masters in the museums and fine homes in England and Europe. There was a determination to improve my own work, which I knew had weaknesses, and I became engrossed in the techniques of the eighteenth and nineteenth century painters of Europe whose works I so admired."

To be continued.