Crook Cottage Stables – Part 1

By Mark Simms on 26/08/2013

I was very busy over the weekend taking shots of a friend of ours competing in a Dressage event at Crook Cottage Stables in Walsall, West Midlands. As with my previous attempts at Equestrian sports – see the series of seven posts from Cholmondeley Castle Horse Trials starting here – I really enjoyed the experience and came away thinking that I would like to do more of this sort of photography.

I took a few hundred images in the 3 to 4 hours I was there, not difficult when you have the camera in high-speed continuous shot mode. This approach does tend to ensure that you capture a lot of the action, but it also means you end-up spending longer in post-processing deciding which of the images you’re going to work on.

This first group of fifteen concentrates on the riders and horses before they go into the arena to compete – warming-up, preparing and generally waiting around:

In case you were wondering, yes it was Emma on Pippa that we were there to support – hence more shots of them than anyone else….;0).

Watch out for more posts from Crook Cottage over the next few days. In fact these aren’t the only Equestrian images I have to share with you, because a couple of weeks ago I attended the Somerford Park Horse Trials at Holmes Chapel in Cheshire – I just haven’t had chance to do anything with those shots yet. So they will be posted later this year…..hopefully!

© Mark Simms Photography (2013)