It is an exciting time of year with the winter Olympics in full swing. I empathize and appreciate all the hard work of the athletes. Working as a sports photographer, every competitor exhibits the characteristics of preparation, execution and release. All of these areas give the sports photographer opportunities to capture the emotions of the athlete. While I am only able to view the Olympic coverage on television, I am currently in Wellington, Florida surrounded by the best equestrians in the world at The Winter Equestrian Festival. Saturday night was the $375,000 FEI Grand Prix. It was an exciting class with forty five competitors, six being called back for the jump-off over a shortened course. It gave me lots of opportunity to photograph the preparation, execution and release.

1. Preparation

Anticipation for Nice De Prissey with Brianne Goutal, Balance and concentration for Ursula XII and Scott Brash.

2. Execution

Special Lux with Jonathan McCrea, With Wings and Karen Polle, Mic Mac Du Tillard with David Will.

For equestrians, the rider and the horse are skilled athletes. They must work as a team. I love the different expressions of concentration of the horse and rider as they approach and jump these huge fences.

Kent Farrington and Willow

The course must be completed in a certain amount of time. The rider must move along. When it’s a jump off, the rider needs to gallop as fast as safely possible. In the end, the jumps have to stay up.

Jessicia Springstein and Vindicat W, Charlie Jayne and Chill R Z

The course designer builds problems into the course testing the horse and rider’s versatility. Sometimes it’s the number of possible strides between jumps. It may be the size and shape of the jump. The horse and rider have to answer every question with a clean jump.

Tim Gredley and Unex Chamberlain Z, Scott Brash and Ursula XII

The determination in horse and rider is inspiring!

3. Release

Ben Maher on Cella winners of the $375,000 Grand Prix

As these athletes pursue excellence, I to strive to photograph their stories to the best of my abilities!! I hope you enjoy these photographs.