guess which one pulled out in front..

Spent my Saturday at Mount Pleasant Meadows for about 8 hours, photographing my sport feature subject, Ruth Scherer, and shooting all the jockeys and races. I got to play with the 300mm 2.8 so pretty, so heavy (over 6lbs), but so worth it. This week i got access to the jockey rooms, paddocks, front tacking area and as of Sunday i got to be next to the starting gates!

I showed up at 8am and got to meet the gate guys as they had horses, trainers & jockeys come in to practice the gates with phillys. Got to put that 50 1.4 7fps (frames per second) to use, the camera is faster than the horse. I spent most of my afternoon running between the jockey area up front, hopping on the back of the truck to get back down to the gates for the start. 10 hours later, i finally left the track- tired but again worth it.

I have learned so much in the past week about horse racing, thanks to everyone’s hospitality. Especially Ruth who has let me follow her around constantly and Jim, gate crew and amazing horseman, and Sean, owner/trainer.

Ruth Scherer in pink.

Spent the morning and a lot of the afternoon with the gate crew. Fun group of men who run the gate and next to the jockeys, have the most dangerious job, being in the gates between two horse controlling them and keeping their jockeys safe. (Jim's on the far right).

Amish v. jockey