This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.
If you want to know more about the rules, visit the Wednesday Walk Community, created by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.
Here in South Africa, we had a long weekend in the middle of June. During this long weekend, there was a huge horse show-jumping-championship at the Shongweni Club. From what I heard, it was an international championship.
We went through on Monday to watch some of the action and I took hundreds of photos.
I have to admit, I was a bit out of my comfort zone taking these photos and my youngest daughter was (still is) teaching me some new techniques when taking these kind of photos.
But I believe the only way of learning is by doing...lol.
So, here we go...
Let's start with this rider, ready to begin her round in the arena.
After scanning the arena, already plotting her course over all the obstacles in her mind, she returned to her starting point, from where she approached her first jump.
In the next two photos, she is approaching the first obstacle and you can see how both horse and rider are focused on clearing the obstacle ahead of them.
Watch those muscles tensing up as the horse gets ready to jump...
And over they go...!! While the horse is still focusing on the landing, you can see the rider already zooming in and starting to focus on the next jump.
Shortly after that and clearing a few other obstacles, they came right toward me, clearing this jump while I was able to capture the action from the front.
Meanwhile, another rider had just started her round in another arena and I was just in time to capture some shots of this round too.
Here she was about to go over the first obstacle...
Let's see what's going to happen...
Clear!
Returning from the opposite side of the arena, she crossed these obstacles, coming back toward me.
There were three jumps in a row that she had to cross here.
In the next photo, she was coming over the middle one.
She then cleard the third one...already starting to focus on the next jump.
After returning to the far end of the arena, she again came back toward me, clearing more obstacles.
Launching!
And again! Another perfect jump with no penalties!
How can you not praise your horse after such a perfect and wonderful performance?
And with that we come to the end of today' post.
Thank you for reading my post! I do appreciate it!
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