Welsh Cob Foal in Maine

A super cute, 11 day old, Section D Welsh Cob foal was the main reason for the trip to Maine. He was a bit shy at first but eventually he approached the black unwavering gaze of the camera lens with the cover of a helpful tree. Soon he was too close to photograph and was rewarded with good scratches all over.

With some encouragement, via trotting out mom, he showed off his future dressage trot. Welsh Cobs and Welsh Cob crosses are becoming popular dressage mounts. There is North Forks Brenin Cardi on the west coast and the up and coming Quillane Apollo on the east coast and the sire of this foal.

After his workout, the as yet unnamed foal, went back to the barn for a good nap with the ever watchful mom standing guard. I had to go stalk other horses for entertainment. Another Welsh Cob mare.

Foliage in Maine

We stopped for lunch and behind the building several trees with bright red fuzzy flowers caught my attention. Amy had pointed them out to me from the road once and told me they were poisonous. I still had to go over for a closer look with camera in tow. I took some pics and when Amy's mom came out I asked her what they were. "Sumac," she said. "You didn't touch it did ya?" I told her that Amy had pointed it out in passing once before. I had assumed it was poisonous to horses, not people. Amy's mom told me that Amy discovered it once by playing in it and was covered in hives and itchy for a good long time after that. It's like Poison Ivy. Glad I didn't touch it but she did note that this may have been a non-poisonous ornamental variety.

Once we arrived at our destination, Karen's place, I immediately jumped into taking pix of the foal. (Baby pix, next post!) Afterwards I poked my camera lens into her garden while she and Beth (Amy's mom) went in to the house to talk business. There were lots of Bumble bees on the cone flowers so I stalked them for a while with my long lens. I switched to the shorty lens for a few still life images and scenes around the place. Too bad the plants were a little bug eaten, I still couldn't resist! There was a totally stray peacock feather sticking out of a container. The only one and no peacocks to be seen or heard in the immediate area. The day was overcast but bright so the feather really glimmered against its rough dark wood background.
There was a rather picturesque farm across the road with some flowers on the outside edge of the field. Of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of Karen's barn either being all tidy and fresh looking and set on a grassy knoll! I get a little green-starved living in the desert, but I love all the other colors I get there.

Standardbreds in Maine

While in New England shooting some hunter/jumper shows with Amy Cody, I had almost a week of down time between show number one and show number two to do some looking around. I went with Amy's mom to Maine briefly. She had to stop by a breeding barn and then go over to a client/friend to see a 2 week old Welsh Cob baby.

The breeding barn was one of the largest red wooden barns I have ever seen. They just don't build them like that in New Mexico. It was fully three stories high and the horses resided on the bottom level. I could only guess what might be in the upper level(s) besides a lot of hay and storage. The farm also had more than one of these monstrous barns.

The farm mostly bred Standardbreds but they also did breeding for local mare and stallion owners as well. Inside, the ceiling was low and it was dark. The mural on the wall in the AI area was funny. All blue skies and green trees! Then sheer number and size of the support beams overhead was impressive. All the better for tons of hay I suppose.

I wandered out to the fields where the foals and yearlings were. Way off in the distance you could see the half cut hay fields. It was quite hot and humid so there wasn't much frolicking going on. In fact there was far more napping. Most of the foals were older and independent as they were, like the thoroughbreds, timed to be born as close to January as possible since January 1st will be their birthdate for life. Only the year counts. The small herd of mares and foals were well cared for as well as the yearlings in the other pasture. So nice to see breeders trim their foals hooves from birth. That makes for so many more successful futures with balanced feet. We didn't stay long, but I was able to take a few images of interest including this soft eyed, friendly broodmare.

Quillane Apollo

Just a few images of a drop dead gorgeous Section D Welsh Cob Stallion, Quillane Apollo, at liberty.

NHHJA Show

Amy Cody and I teamed up for 3 hunter jumper shows on the east coast. The first of which was in New Hampshire, the NHHJA Summer Festival Show. We arrived at the show grounds about 7pm Friday evening right as the skies opened up and dumped an awful lot of rain with wind speeds of a velocity worthy of tipping the porta potties. It's true, 3 of them! Well, at least it won't be dusty!
Once we got our bearings we went to find the hotel. We checked in and prepared everything for then next day's shoot.

After everyone was ready for bed, I went out to sit on the porch for a while, check email and the radar and chill. Along came another good rain storm. I sat under the eaves just watching and I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye in the bushes next to me. I thought I saw a skunk! A few moments later he went by again, yup, a skunk! Less than 10 feet away from me. I just stood stock still and he went on his way trying to find shelter from the rain under the bushes but to his dismay, there were no rain gutters so he was getting rain and rain run off from the roof. Saturday night I was ready for him and got off a few snaps from the 2nd floor porch. New Hampshire skunks have more white on them than New Mexico skunks.

The show grounds was nice and they kept the cars from parking anywhere near the competition arenas. Always a treat for a show photographer. So many show grounds are a cluttered, unorganized mess which makes it hard to get clean shots. The arenas themselves all had great footing regardless of the amount of rain the night before. They didn't really drain but the all-weather footing was sure.

On Sunday it rained lightly on and off a few times which helped keep things cool but by the time they got to the last class it had started to rain more diligently and the lightning started. They wrapped things up pretty quick and made the decision to have the last class, a classic, at the following show. We packed up and went into town for a nice dinner before driving back to Massachusetts. It rained hard for about 10 minutes while we ate so we checked the radar on Amy's iPhone before we left. Coastal New Hampshire was going to get hit with one heck of a rain storm in a few hours so we booked it out of there and made it home before the rain started. 1.7 inches of rain fell right where we had been. Overall we got pretty lucky shooting betoween two major storms.

The competition images from the NHHJA Summer Festival can be seen at www.classicproofs.com the website we created for when Amy and I work together as a team. Look for the two NHHJA galleries.

Turkeypalooza

A whole herd of wild turkeys came to lounge and preen in Amy's front yard today. Amy is near Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts and it has been storming off an on for the last two days. Today the sun came out for a while and so did the turkeys. I'm guessing they decided their feathers could use a little clothesline time and Amy's secluded and sunny front yard seemed to be the perfect place.

I was sitting just inside with many windows open and I heard the female turkeys doing their chirpy, soft, happy & content warble. I noticed after a few minutes that it wasn't stopping so I looked out the window and there they were. I grabbed the camera and changed lenses, then located a CF card and formatted it and headed out to the garage hoping they would still be there. They were. In fact, as long as I stayed in the garage they were just happy as turkeys in a spa to stick around and preen their feathers.
I've seen wild turkeys before but never so many in one place. I wasn't able to do an exact head count since many were milling around but I would guestimate easily 30-35. There were four or five mature males, about the same number of mature females and a whole slew of young 'uns. I ended up shooting them for almost an hour before they picked up and disappeared back into the forest in the back yard.

Colorado Horse Park 3 Day Event

The weather was perfect for the Colorado Horse Park 3 Day Event. No blazing heat, no hail, no rain, no dark and moody overcast skies. After a 1.5 year long hiatus from shooting eventing in Colorado I returned to shoot the 3 day event and horse Trials in May of 2008 as the official photographer. The show was managed by Jeffray Rying of Galisteo, New Mexico's, Goose Downs Farm with Deeda Randal being her right hand.

Long days, great weather, beautiful venue, superb horses and fine show management. What more could a horse photographer want? There were 4 dressage rings going all at once on Friday and 2 Stadium rings on Sunday requiring me to bring in one of my good friends, Amy Cody, to help me shoot all three days and cover everyone. Amazingly enough, and a true testament to fine show management, all the dressage and stadium rings finished within 1/2 hour of each other on their respective days. The Cross Country phase ran on Saturday from 7:30 am until a bit after 6pm with very close to zero delays. There was a minor snafu in the photographer's camp, however, like the complete shutdown of my main camera which forced the use of my back-up camera. I have always had back-up equipment with me but never had to use it before in all of the 10+ years I have been doing this. I sure am glad I have never gotten complacent about faithfully packing that mostly unused equipment around with me. Whew!

Together, Amy and I shot well over 6400 images in 3 days. That averages out to approximately 25 images per horse with the 260 horses that competed. Of course, there were lots of candids as well and after editing, right around 4,000 of the images were posted as proofs on the website. It took about 10 long days to go through them all, do minor post processing and cropping and then get them uploaded.

All in all, it was a great and fun long weekend. Thank you Jeffray for having me. Thank you Amy for being low-maintenance, experienced, and fun to work with hired help! Thank you, competitors, for making my job possible!