As of February 2008, in excess of £1 million had been committed to the project by the founding patrons (of ELP Ltd)[5] from London & Continental Railways who are "actively promoting the development of regeneration opportunities in Ebbsfleet",[6] Land Securities "the UK's leading Real Estate Investment Trust"[7] and from Eurostar.

[11][12] Gormley and other artists were invited to admit designs on 22 May 2007, by which time the intended site (a hill outside the new High Speed 1 station at Ebbsfleet International, near Land Securities' Springhead Park residential development) had been announced.

A shortlist was chosen on 28 January 2008 (comprising Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Deacon, Christopher le Brun, and Daniel Buren).

Le Brun produced a winged disc; Buren a tower of 5 cubes; Deacon a stack of 26 different steel polyhedra; Wallinger a realistic sculpture of a horse and Whiteread a plaster cast of a house's interior atop an artificially-created mountain.

[15] The sculpture's completion was originally planned to occur before domestic high-speed services to Kent began on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 2009 and in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Kent County Council initially criticised the original design for not prancing like Invicta[17] and proposed an alternative, but the entry was rejected by the competition's panel of representatives.