Tag Archives: Ebon Stables

Amateur hour

August 25th, 2008 | By Judy Wood

Close-up photo of a dressage horse copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Polo crowd copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of a hawk in flight copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Photograph of polo players. Copyright Judy Wood, all rights reserved.

Well, what a nice weekend. Mostly I write about the weekend just past on my Monday posts because I can’t remember any farther back than the last couple of days. Sad, I know, but there you have it.

The weekend was notable for featuring perfect mid-August weather of the sort we don’t actually often *get* in mid-August. Doubly odd since there were not one but two horse events for me to photograph, and that’s usually the signal for the weather gods to come up with something extreme and unpleasant for at least one of the days. There weren’t even any bugs to speak of, passing strange all around. It was a tad warm from the point of view of the horses who were exerting themselves, no doubt, and their equally hard-working riders (and you non-riders out there, don’t ever kid yourselves that riders aren’t working darn hard when they’re up top and schooling or competing) but all in all pretty acceptable.

The events I attended were a dressage show at my home barn of Ebon Stables, and a couple of polo games (Saskatoon vs Edmonton) over in the polo field at Willow Ridge Stables. I had to do a bit of scuttling back and forth both days but managed to get my shots at both locations. Throw in going from one barn to the other “the long way” via my house in the city, in order to let the dogs out at intervals, and that was pretty well my weekend.

Husband Jim was inconsiderate enough to scoot off to the lake cottage for the weekend with the other local family members, so I was on the hook for the boys. My part of that conversation went something like “what do you *mean* you’re going to the lake for the weekend? I need you to stay home and let the dogs out!” Shows how much influence I have, but it was an admittedly unreasonable request. Of course the dogs can’t actually *go* to the lake because they (well, Mickey) don’t get along with one of my daughter’s dogs. Also I know they’d behave like barbarians anyway and things are already going south at that lake with breed restrictions, so best we just keep them out of the mix.

With the Olympics just winding up on the weekend, I got to thinking about the nature of true “amateurism” in the original sense of the word, that of doing something seriously and well for the pure love of it.  That meaning has become a bit skewed both in the contemporary world, where it has taken on a bit of a pejorative meaning, and also in the Olympics themselves, which seem increasingly dominated by politics and financial concerns.

To me, the events I photographed this weekend were of the true “amateur” sort. Dressage is a hard sell in this area, and it’s definitely not done around here for the glory or the money. I have literally been at a dressage show (years ago when I first started riding) where my friend Hannelore brought homemade cookies in a tin, gave one to every member of the viewing audience, and still had some cookies left over for the competitors. And that was a quite well attended show compared to some of the ones we’ve seen in recent years. Same thing would have held true for both events this weekend. Hannelore’s cookie tin might well have had enough cookies for the dressage audience *and* those viewing the polo.

So for the competitors in both these events, it’s about the love of what they do, about competing (against another team in the case of polo, and against a scorecard and an impossible “ideal” ride in the case of dressage), and about working with love, dedication, and ideally, joy. The fact that it’s done with horses in both cases makes the undertaking all the sweeter.

My first photo today is a close crop of one of the dressage horses. This was a lovely boy, nicely ridden by his skilled owner. I love the look of calm intelligence in his eye.

Shot number two is what greeted me as I pulled up to the polo field on Sunday morning. The “crowd” was enjoying a visit and cup of coffee prior to the start of the game. Once the game got underway they relocated to the stands just visible on the right, and were joined by about five or six others. Luckily for us, one of the “others” was the husband of a player on the Saskatoon team, and he was a wonderful and greatly appreciated source of a lot of information on the intricacies of the game, which was good since the rest of us didn’t have much of a clue what we were watching. We just knew it was exciting, and I know a good photo op when I see one!

Third shot is one of the other “audience” members for the polo, keeping track of the game from a different vantage. These hawks have nested nearby, and the two teenagers were out for flying lessons with the folks over the polo field before the game both days.

Shot number four shows some of the action in the Sunday game. Saskatoon team wearing the black jersey, Edmonton in the white.

This past weekend was the end of the show season at Ebon, so things will slow down for my photo life on that front, but I’m looking forward to a few days with the camera at Spruce Meadows for the big show there in early September, and to getting lots of fall colour shots as the season advances. Somehow there never seems to be a shortage of things for me to want to photograph!

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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When Worlds Collide

June 23rd, 2008 | By Judy Wood

Western horse riders cowboys. Copyright Judy Wood
Western riders cowboys. Copyright Judy Wood
Cowboy. Copyright Judy Wood
Horses taking a break. Copyright Judy Wood

This weekend was one of those interesting ones that I particularly enjoy, when two quite different parts of the “worlds” I inhabit come together for photo ops. The world of horses is a varied one, and with a few exceptions, I’m pretty keen on all of them.
The first of the Ebon Stables dressage shows happened this weekend, and as a dressage rider and enthusiast, I’m generally on the spot for these shows, camera in hand, and list of riders who want show photos firmly in my head.
This year, though, there was a timing conflict, as I had heard about a working cowboy camp that sounded way too good to pass up for enhancing my collection of western themed photos. Once I learned that the camp was being held at the ranch of Dale and Teri Clearwater, where I have done photos before, I knew I had to take in this event as well.
I met the Clearwaters last fall through a mutual acquaintance. I phoned them to say I had heard about them and would love to come to their place to do some photography, and they kindly agreed to my request. When I got out there for the first time, I was just blown away by the landscape and by the type of operation they run. This is classic working ranch stuff of the sort I didn’t know existed less than an hour’s drive from my place. Dale and Teri have only owned the ranch for a few years but have turned it into a functional and well maintained horse training facility, with the bonus of a lot of cattle on the side. They embody the solid character and strong work ethic that epitomizes the best of ranch life, and Dale has a well-earned reputation as a skilled trainer of working cowhorses and of cutting horses. Bonus for me is he and his operation are as classic in look and style as he is in his working methods, so for the purposes of my photography, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Dale and Teri are also very accommodating in humouring me with my sometimes odd ideas of what I want to photograph around their place. I’m used to being mostly ignored when I’m out getting shots, and sometimes just barely tolerated, but the Clearwaters are positively co-operative and welcoming about having me lurking in the background with a big lens, which is a really nice change. I do my best to stay out of trouble and not get in the way too much, but at bottom I’m a city person and there’s a lot I don’t know when it comes to ranch life.
I was able to get to the ranch for the Saturday afternoon session, which was calf roping. There were a lot of participants in this clinic, all working cowboys/girls with their own horses, and four guest instructors besides Dale. There was also a camera crew filming for the Cowboy Country television show, which was my first hint that this was a fairly big deal. The level of organization that must have gone into putting this event on was impressive, as they were handling not only the clinics for the participants, but also providing camping facilities, a grand Saturday night dinner, live entertainment, and a Sunday morning church service in addition. Many of the participants came with their families for the weekend, and there were swarms of little kids zipping about, being ably cared for and entertained by helpers. Mercifully the weather was decent, as the pouring rain we had earlier in the month would have meant trouble for this event. Mind you, Saturday was darn hot and it was stressful for all concerned in the clinic–instructors, participants, horses and calves, but this is a cowboy operation and they are all used to functioning in whatever extremes nature chooses to throw at them.
I learned a bit about the ins and outs of roping and handling the cattle as I watched and did my photos, and I was impressed that all the instructors emphasized ways of working with the horses and cattle that were the most efficient, safe, and least stressful for the animals. Just get in, do the job right, and get out. No carrying on, no dramatics, no grandstanding. It’s always a pleasure to watch professionals do what they do best, and here I’m referring to both the human and the equine participants.
So of course I can’t pick just two shots for this post, and none of them is going to be of the dressage show. There’s another dressage show coming up in a couple of weeks, and I’ll get yet more shots at that one, maybe some I can post here.
The first shot shows some of the guest instructors waiting for the afternoon’s work to begin. They were just hanging out and visiting, with Dale’s beautiful hundred year old barn in the background.
In shot number two they are heading in from having brought the calves in from the pasture. Here they have been joined by Dale, who is second from the right. When I got this shot the border collie had momentarily taken over herd wrangling from the riders.
Shot three shows Dale organizing his rope in the nice new large round pen he has constructed since I was last there. It’s a great work area to contain horses and cattle safely while they are being worked with.
Shot four is of a couple of the women riders and their horses taking a break from the heat in the relative coolness of the tree-lined approach to the house. I did a little bit of Photoshop work with this one–will do more when I get the time to make it look more like a painting.
Dale and Teri have their own website up now. You can check it out and learn more about them by following this link http://justaboutaranch.com/
Next weekend, weather permitting, I have two more horse events to photograph–a heavy horse ploughing competition on Saturday, and a combined driving event on Sunday. There seems to be something (or several somethings) every weekend once summer hits. I really think the federal government needs to deal with this by legislating extra weekends over the summer months so we can fit everything in.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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Signs??

June 9th, 2008 | By Judy Wood


Boxer dog photo by Judy Wood
Boxer dog photo by Judy Wood
Cattle photo by Judy Wood

I’ve been beavering away at my vast number of recent image files, trying to sort, delete, organize and generally wrangle them into some sort of order. Since the amount of shooting I’m doing of late has grown exponentially, staying on top of it all is pretty important.

I spent the morning and much of yesterday (and part of the day before) doing edits on the multi-hundred shots I took on our Edmonton area outing of a couple of weeks ago. I did some horse shots for a friend who plans to sell her young warmblood, some farm and under saddle shots for the owner of the dressage facility where she boards, and a whole bunch of shots of general interest and for future art use.

Going through the Edmonton visuals brought back some of the visits to friends and the strange new form of entertainment I picked up while we were there. On our first evening we went to visit with an old (as in long-standing, ahem) friend and fellow artist Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.crone-findlay.com/ and her expanding family. The expansion is in the form of a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law, both of relatively recent vintage in that capacity, and both being met by us for the first time. These are all dog people so talk centered to a fair extent on our doggy friends, both current and from days gone by.

Ali, now married to Noreen’s son Angus, also has a Boxer past, so of course we had to have some Boxer discussion. One of the things that struck me as very entertaining in the midst of this was Noreen relating the story of a visit to a dog show where she encountered a number of frantic people rushing about the grounds crying out “Seven Boxers running loose!”. Ali finished the knitting stitch she was working on, then remarked with a totally straight face “Isn’t that a sign of the Apocalypse?” Of course this set us all off, and now one of my current new activities is looking for “signs”.

As these things work out, we discovered another one that same evening, when we were chatting before bedtime with our friend Brenda, at whose place we were staying. We told her the Boxer Apocalypse story, and talk moved off in an equine direction, Brenda being a horse person. We were talking about farriers and she had a story about her farrier who also did team roping with various of his cowboy friends. Apparently a couple of them had purchased an electric cow (no, I’m *not* making this up) to spare wear and tear on the real thing while they practised their roping skills on horseback with a moving target. My understanding is that it would lurch off when started up and carry on fleeing until a rope landed on its neck to trigger the “off” mechanism.

The farrier happened by one evening to find his friends working on the cow who had some mechanical problems. They were toiling away trying to find out what the problem was, when the “on” switch was accidentally triggered, the cow was miraculously cured, and took off into the distance, leaving them staring and cursing with no ropes or horses with which to pursue and subdue it. Of course we all instantly recognized this as yet another “sign” by which we would be able to foretell bad things in the offing. If it was being pursued by seven loose Boxers at the same time, heading for cover would be a prudent thing.

There’s nothing for it but to post Boxer and cattle pictures here. I couldn’t choose from the Boxer shots, so am putting up a few more than usual. Both these dogs belong to a local breeder and friend of Boxers in particular and dogs in general. She has a huge amount of heart and kindness and fosters many Boxers and Boxer mixes that find themselves in bad circumstances until they can locate new homes. I have a huge amount of respect for her.

I got these shots at Ebon Stables last week. There are a couple of dog agility rings north of the barn, and I was lucky to catch a lesson with the Boxers in it. Marco is the more standard looking one. He is one of their stud dogs and an absolutely loveable goof. I was thrilled to see him in action since he makes my boys look relatively sane by comparison. Anyone who knows Boxers will understand the one where he is sitting. He’s under orders here and is waiting to be allowed to zoom off on his mission, but it’s really tough for him to stay still. The second shot of him shows him in action over a jump, ears and jowls flying.

Spryte is the little white female who is flying over her jump. She’s a small little package, but powerful and strongly muscled. If she was a horse, she’d be a feisty little Quarter horse mare for sure.

The cattle shot is one I got in Alberta a few years ago. My daughter and I (and grandson Mark) spent pretty well all of Mother’s Day that year driving over four hours each way to take a bearded dragon lizard to its’ new home at a reptile sanctuary. This is a whole other story, but I did get some nice shots of these cows as a reward.

Noreen’s daughter, by the way, is an up and coming artist in her own right, and also relatively newly-wed to her military husband (who Mark was thrilled to meet) Clancy. I was going to post a link to Chloe’s website, but darned if I can find it!!

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.

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