I am so excited to share these sneak peek images from a recent equine portrait photoshoot!
At the end of October, I visited the lovely Jess who runs Equestrian Heights in Seend; a beautiful yard in the Wiltshire countryside, to capture her life with her horses. There was one horse there in particular that was to be the star of the show; the gorgeous Dinky. Named because of his size (although he is technically 16hh), this pair have quite the story. A year ago, just as Dinky was starting to show his enormous talent as a dressage horse, a freak incident nearly ended his career. It resulted in the nerves in his hind end dying and despite intervention from multiple specialists and vets, it seemed like he would never be ridden again.
After a year being a field ornament, Jess could tell that he wasn’t 100% loving life; he was only 7yrs old and loved to work, so she decided to slowly build up his strength through hacking and see if he could take some light exercise. He went from strength to strength and one day she decided to see if he still had the moves in the arena.
He came back with a bang; going on to win his first ever competition at Elementary level, followed by two wins at Medium level a few weeks later! Jess told me that she isn’t normally that emotional a person, but riding down that centreline meant so much to her after such a tough year. Dinky is almost completely back to his usual self and she feels that the time off did him good. For a 7yr old top competition horse, he did not bat an eyelid at Jess’s delightful 6yr old son Archie running around and doting on him (according to him, Dinky is HIS horse!) and absolutely knew which was his best side for the photoshoot.
I was in HEAVEN on this shoot – not only did Jess have a stable full of stunning horses for me to photograph, she also had seemingly endless labradors running around, including two puppies from litters she bred. I very nearly piled them all into my car and drove off.
There are lots more stunning shots from this shoot, but for now enjoy these tasters!
