I've been a wildlife photographer for a number of years but recently I'm trying to shoot some different things. I caught the photo bug in sports photography back in high school but haven't shot much sports since then. Living in Kentucky now; I had to take advantage of the opportunity to shoot some thoroughbred racing at the Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, KY during the fall meet. These are a few of the photos I shot. I would greatly appreciate any/all critiques. The pictures were mostly shot with Nikon D7000/D300 on a 600mm f/4.
kurtis miller wrote:
That one caught my eye too... he is being "asked" to move away from the horse on his left
This image has one has become one of my favorites as well. The race was won by Lulengo Uno (Horse #3) ridden by Jesus Castanon and third was taken by the brown horse...Estrella Vega (Horse 12) ridden by Corie Lanerie. The "posing" is the thing that grabbed me also. I had a slightly different take than Kurtis...but I'm not really a horse person so that is an interesting possibility (probably more correct than my idea).
I've seen this "posing" in a number of different images with different horses. The one thing I have noticed with thoroughbreds is that many are freaks about weird things. My take was that the horse was checking me out and was not happy with me. It is amazing they can do this at 30mph. In morning practices, if you move at all, it totally freaks some of them out...in fact I don't like shooting morning practices any more because of that. Now during races I try to back off the rail as much as possible and not move so as to not distract the horses.
