Orkney Pony Club Mounted Games

The above picture was one of a couple of ours to make it into The Orcadian newspaper in Orkney this week.

The team from Orkney Pony Club qualified for the Horse of the Year show – which will be televised later in year.

Pony Club Games Zone Finals at Lanark

A long and very wet Saturday at the Pony Club Mounted Games finals in Lanark. These were qualifiers for the Horse of the Year show, so a big occasion for all involved.

It was the first time I’d photographed mounted games, and it was a bit of a challenge – it is quite a bit less predictable than showjumping or dressage, and everything happens very fast.  There were also just two of us to capture six lanes of flying pony.

But I was constantly amazed and impressed by what these guys can do on a horse.

Pony Club Mounted Games

Fife Hunt Pony Club ODE at Scone

I was photographing the showjumping at the Fife Hunt Pony Club ODE at Scone today.  They had a lot of competitors which made for a long day, but it all seemed to go off very well.

Fife Hunt Pony Club ODE at Scone

The Linlithgow & Stirlingshire Pony Club had another successful event at the SNEC this weekend – this time it was Dressage, with qualifiers for Dengie in Novice and Open.

There were some superb looking horses and ponies taking part. Although dressage photography can be pretty difficult, some of these horse and rider combinations made it easy.

More photos in the event photography gallery.

Another Linlithgow & Stirlingshire Pony Club event at the Scottish National Equestrian Centre (SNEC) at Oatridge College.

It was a pretty full-on day – show jumping classes started at 8.30am, and we were still takings photographs for the last one at 9pm, with the snow falling deep and thick and even outside.

But it was a great event – lots of teams in every class, all having a lot of fun. The course-builders were very helpful in giving us good positions to get the best showjumping photos possible.

It was a long hard day but we came out with almost 1500 quality photos to go on the website, and orders are now pouring in so it was well worth it.

Nicole from the Linlithgow & Stirlingshire Pony Club asked me to come down and take some event photos at their annual fun show at the Scottish National Equestrian Centre (SNEC) at Oatridge in West Lothian.

As well as the usual show jumping classes there were lots of fun competitions, including fancy dress, parent & pony, horse & hound and Chase Me Charlie. Conditions for photography were not the best due to the poor lighting in the warm-up arena where most of the jumping was held, but fortunately we have the latest Nikon equipment which performs superbly in low light, so were still able to get very printable shots even at the end of the day.