Picture of the Year

“A striking image, well timed and excellently framed”

DAN ABRAHAM

“A gamble has been taken with a remote at an unusual angle and it really pays off” “A seemingly everyday image that rewards a second look, capturing racing in Covid times”

PATRICK MCCANN

“Freakish, aesthetically a good shape, lots going on –capturing the reaction of the groom makes it”

FRANCESCA ALTOFT

MATTHEW WEBB

THE NOMINATIONS

BY HARRY ALLWOOD

DAN ABRAHAM

It’s a picture of a horse going over a hurdle, silhouetted with a nice big sun behind it. It was at Huntingdon, one of my local tracks, and I absolutely love going there as there are very big skies and you can get wonderful sunsets. I specifically knew what I was going to do when I went to get the shot and, luckily, I had three chances to do it

I didn’t go to get a photo of a certain horse; I was just after the perfect silhouette. It was just a good horse doing a good jump, with the sun going down in the background. I like to get five or six of these sorts of photos every year as it keeps a lot of the people I work for happy as they like things like that.

FRANCESCA ALTOFT

The photo is of a horse called Tease And Seize, who was trained by Rod Millman at the time, at Bath, which is one of the fantastic racecourses I work for. I’d been watching him in the paddock and he had thrown Charlie Bennett off two or three times prior to heading out onto the track. I thought, for my safety, I’m going to get out of the paddock, and I expected there to be fireworks when he headed to post. There certainly were!

I think you have got to be in the right place at the right time to get these types of shots. It’s not something that happens right in front of you every day. The horse actually made it to post and finished second, which was quite remarkable after his exertions beforehand.

PATRICK MCCANN

This was at Navan and it was taken with a remote camera in a ditch looking up at the runners as they jump. The horse is Young Dev, and he has the sun glaring behind him and he’s kicking up the birch. There’s dust and everything flying over him and the perfect glare is coming from the horse’s hindquarters.

Hugh Morgan is the jockey, and he lost his irons at the very first fence but miraculously guided his mount to victory having ridden the race without his irons. There is an element of luck, and you plan the best you can, but everything was perfect for this shot, from the frame of the photo to the position of the horse. The element of stars aligning certainly helped!

MATTHEW WEBB

It’s an editorial sort of picture, as it tells a story. It was taken at Exeter during lockdown when racing was taking place behind closed doors, and I came in after one race and there were no owners to greet the winner, Go Millie Go. Her trainer, Stuart Edmunds, wasn’t even there and it was just the jockey, Ciaran Gethings, and the horse with their back to me looking at the big screen watching the replay of the race.

It was a bit of light humour amongst all the doom and gloom at the time, and it made me smile. In the background, there’s one person with a face mask on and an empty grandstand, and it tells the story of what racing was like behind closed doors.

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