EQUINE

I have always admired the majestic nature of horses, an awe that was thankfully nurtured when I was allowed to begin taking riding lessons at an early age. Watching The Triple Crown was an annual ritual at our home and continues to be a much anticipated equine event for me every Spring. I majored in documentary photography at the New England School of Photography in Boston and thought it would be fascinating, as a photographer, to explore the world, ‘behind the scenes’, of the thoroughbreds. Although I subsequently attended a few steeplechase events, it wasn’t until 1991 that I started to photograph horses in earnest. 

I spent many winters in Stuart, Florida photographing at Payson Park Thoroughbred Training Center in Indiantown, west of Stuart. Some of the best horses from the US, Canada and often abroad come to Payson to train. After seeing a Thoroughbred emerge from the early morning fog at a fast gallop, or “breeze”, for the first time, I was hooked. I became part of a select group of people that was given access to the barns in order to photograph. I was tremendously impressed at the care the horses were given, no matter their talent or potential for success.

My racehorse project took me to various racetracks in the US, and to Newmarket England, in 1998, to photograph. A compilation of my photographs will be published in a book, “The Mystique of the Thoroughbred”, which is still in process.