Snow day pictures in Dayton, Ohio: horses, snow and people, how fun!
My wife, Patty is a teacher at Miamisburg city schools. There is nothing more fun than a snow day and today would certainly have been one, except for the fact that they already had the day off for presidents day.
Riding horses in snow is great fun and with the snow coming down throughout the day Patty could not wait for the snow to stop to get out and ride. Patty does endurance rides and competitive trail rides in the summer and this was a great opportunity to exercise her horses. The snow was so deep that it was like riding through deep sand. However before she could ride, she thought it was wise to lunge the horses. They were very excited about all the snow coming down as you will see in the pictures.
As you can see the snow was quite deep. The next image shows Merlot putting his nose down in the snow as he continued around Patty.
Patty laughs as Merlot’s nose is covered with snow.
Below is Cocoa being lunged before his ride. I was too exhausted from clearing the snow from the driveway to trudge out to the pasture to take pictures of them riding, plus the snow was coming down so hard that my camera would have been soaked in no time. Now it is official. Another SNOW DAY with school canceled for tomorrow. More fun in the snow, more riding horses in the snow, how fun is that? Our neighbor was nice enough to run his tractor mounted snow blower up our drive earlier, but I was the one who had to dig a path to where we dump our manure so that the horses could have nice fresh new bedding after their ride in the deep snow of the 2010 winter here in Dayton, Ohio. The snow has not quit and it is now dark.
Cocoa is such a good boy. He gets a pat on the head before headed out for a ride with Patty.
With all the snow, now our third major snow fall in the last couple of weeks, I’ve listed several posts about taking better pictures in snow. You can find them linked to my home page on this web site: http://www.photosbypdemott.com This post will appear on my notes page on my facebook personal page. It will also appear on my wall on my photography business fan page on facebook and it will be tweeted on my twitter account. Please feel free to follow me in any of these locations.
Kentucky Diehard Endurance Ride at The Nature Preserve at Shaker Village
The weather was near perfect for the Kentucky Diehard Endurance Ride at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill & The Nature Preserve at Shaker Village just south of Lexington Kentucky. I stayed overnight in an old Shaker Village meeting house before the ride on Saturday November 21, 2009. My room was on the third floor up a very narrow staircase with a latch door and simple decor (except the bathroom which was modern). The room light was a lamp in the form of a candle stick and a dim electric candle light bulb.
This building was about 300 yards from the stable at Shaker Village where most of the riders had their trailers parked. Stalls and running water was available.
The well kept trails were beautiful with rolling hills and taking the riders right past the buildings of the main part of Shaker Village then out into the countryside through meadows and rolling hills. Many areas had beautiful stone fences along the trails. The brochure says there are 3000 acres of original Shaker countryside.
There were lots and lots of smiles throughout this well organized endurance ride. This is a don’t miss ride for 2010.
The gallery is here: Kentucky Diehards Endurance
Learn more about endurance riding: AERC
The gallery is here: Kentucky Diehards Endurance
Spook Run Endurance Ride October 2009 near Henryville Indiana
I was planning on photographing both days of the Spook Run Endurance Ride near Henryville Indiana, but we ended up packing up and heading home after the first day. We arrived Thursday night and set up camp. I told Patty, “If it stays like this, this is going to be a great ride”. It was breezy and about 50 Degrees, but the weather forcase was for rain.
The rain woke us several times throughout the night. Waves of heavy rain kept coming. When Patty got up to feed the horse she stepped out the door of the trailer into water about 3 inches deep. It was getting much cooler and Cocoa started to shiver so we put a horse blanket on him. Start of the ride was delayed by one hour. Patty had her mucking boots, but I just ended up with soaking wet shoes (my hiking boots in the truck would provide me with dry shoes later on).
The rain stopped for a little while just long enough to get the ride started in heavy mist and fog. This is a picture of the start where they just walk for about 100 yards on a road until they meet the trail head where the pace gets much faster. I pulled my truck up into a driveway and shot out the window, but nothing that I would call salable images. Maybe a bit “cool”, but difficult to identify riders.
I stationed myself at about the halfway point for the Limited Distance group hoping that I could shoot them, then go back to where the 50 mile riders would be coming out of the trail into the vet check area. Patty came out of the woods with a friend she was riding with and as she passed she told me that Cocoa had tried to lay down in the creek (roll) and she was able to give him a swift kick and get him back up. Only, apparently his butt rug had gotten wet and apparently felt different to Cocoa and spooked him. He went into a bucking fit and Patty bailed off and landed in the mud for a somewhat soft landing. She was shook up, but said she was just fine and off they went. They were midway in the pack of riders doing the Limited Distance.
When I headed over to where the 50s would be coming out, it started pouring down rain so I gave up shooting for a while. I parked near where all the horses were coming in for their vet checks. I knotted off for a short nap and when I awoke, the last of the Limited Distance riders was coming in (I thought). Patty must be with the horse by the trailer, but when I went there she was no place to be found. I went back up to the timer and her and her trial buddy had not come in yet. That’s weird, as they were in the middle when I left them. After another 30 minutes I started to get concerned. Finally, very late, they both showed up. Seems they accidently took a turn that took them back through most of the entire loop again.
They both went through the vet check and did the second loop of the Limited Distance ride. Cocoa was a little off on the right front so Patty was not going to be able to ride him the next day. With the weather changing to much cooler and our horse blanket soaking wet from the night before, we decided that we would take up camp and head home. If we had a living quarters trailer, we could have had hot showers and dry clothing and we would have stayed, but since we did not we left. On our way home Patty was not feeling too well. I told her it was probably from her fall. Ya-know, even though you landed in the mud, I’m sure that was quite a jolt to your body. By the time we arrived home Patty was pretty soar all over. If we had slept the night in chilly conditions, I don’t think she would have been able to move in the morning. As it was, we both took nice hot showers and slept in our warn soft bed at home. She woke soar all over, but soon loosened up and is feeling pretty good after just doing some easy stuff throughout the day.
The pictures that I did get after the rain finally stopped were very pretty showing fall colors and a bed of leaves on the trails. Here are just a few.
The rider above is Janet Kirkpatrick. I owe her an 8×10 from the last ride (Cracked Oats Crunch). I have the list with some others that I need to send out soon, so she will have it soon. After the ride she was telling me that she ended up in the hospital because she had a gallstone between her pancreas and her liver and was in very serious condition with liver failure. They were able to create some sort of bi-pass and will have to go in again to remove the stone perhaps when she gets back. I imagine, you will want this picture too, so I will send both to you Janet. Take care of yourself.
This rider was in the vet check waiting for her time to go out again. “Hey Peter, can you take a couple shots of me here”, she said. She then pointed out where her children had woven a ribbon into the braids of the horse that had the name of their dog which had recently died. “We decided that this ride would be to commemorate our dog.” You cannot see the ribbon from this picture, but I saw it and it is there.
These next couple images show just how pretty the woods and the trails were.
And last of all, if anyone want to purchase images from the ride, here is the link to the few pictures I did take SPOOK RUN ENDURANCE RIDE.
Cracked Oats Crunch Endurance & Ctr
Endurance ride photography is both challenging and fun. For endurance rides I have to get up early to find places on the trail where the light is good and that say something about the ride. I want the pictures to bring back good memories of the event. The people in endurance and competitive trail riding are great too. This is a sport for people that enjoy riding their horses. There are no big cash prizes to taint the sport, just lots of competitive spirit and interesting interesting people.
This ride was staged at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and included a 50 mile endurance ride, a 25 mile “limited distance” endurance ride, a 25 mile competitive trail ride and a shorter novice ride on Sunday. The trails were wide and well cared for and the meadow gave us plenty of room for camping. The Appaloosa Nationals were piggy back with this ride with 13 participants from as far away as Canada.
Morning brought some heavy fog and mist until the sun came up.
The mist quickly burned off revealing a horse eating photographer in the woods. I try to talk to people as they approach to help the horses know that I am just another human being. This horse found the large lens interesting indeed.
At endurance rides and competitive trail rides there are vets, timers, pulse checkers, and other volunteers to help things work smoothly. Here Bill Cartwright logs the time in and time out for riders who have arrived at the vet check. Great job Bill.
Below is a special request for a portrait session at the ride. I have decided that I will offer no charge sessions at endurance rides. Of course, it is not exactly easy to find a time between everything that is going on during one of these events, but this one fit right in. Best time for these is evening.
The next two images are portraits of the winner of the appoloosa nationals , Cat Carter, with her horse.
Shannon Loomis always buys a hand full of pictures from each ride that I shoot where she is an participant. This is a picture of Shannon with our horse April. There was a minor problem with her horse and she could not ride him on the second day. Patty had brought April along hoping to find the right person to ride her since Patty would be riding Cocoa. Here April notices Cocoa across the meadow. They are good buddies, so Shannon had to keep April from trotting off to be with our other horse. From the looks of it both Shannon and April had a great time.
Here Patty waits for her out time. Is it time yet?, is it time yet?, how about now?, is it time yet….? as she teases Bill, the ride timer. Bills response was a very low tone, No, not yet, no, not yet, 10, 9,8,7,6,5.4.3.2.1… Okay, NOW you can go.
To see all the pictures taken during this weekend click on this link: Cracked Oats Crunch Pictures.
My wife Patty just adores her horse Cocoa
This was a picture that I took of Patty and Cocoa just after Patty shocked Cocoa when she touched him and the electric fence at the same time. You can see Patty saying things like “Oh you poor thing, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that to you.” Of course Cocoa was just soaking it all in and I was able to capture the moment creating one of Patty’s favorite portraits of her with her horse. Although I can do at liberty and under sadle equine shoots, and even though I can do conformation poses, the thing that I find more fun and challenging is to capture the relationship in the eyes of the horse owner and their cherished equine companion. This was taken at an endurance ride called the Salomonie Sizzle. Patty enjoys the excitement and the challenge of endurance riding where she rides in 25 and 50 mile rides. During these rides there are several “vet checks” to check on the horse for stress, dehydration, and overall soundness. It is not just a ride like hell to win. You have to know the condition of your horse so that you can pace the ride, negotiate the terrain and finish with a healthy and sound horse. It’s funny, but the vets don’t worry much about the riders at the vet checks. If they clobbered a tree with their knee and are hobbling about and the horse is sound to continue, they say go for it.
