A Nice Surprise!

I woke up this morning and made my usual morning web stops: app.com, weather.com, a couple of blogs that I read regularly, and then sportsshooter.com... and much to my surprise, my Breeders' Cup gallery was being featured, right on sportsshooter's masthead!





Man do I love my job!

Breeders' Cup (Day 2)

Mud! Mud mixed with horse poop! And I was lying in it! Woo!

First though, yesterday I promised a photo of the tunnel leading to the photo workroom, so here it is...




Like I said, we're in the basement, out of sight from the rest of the world. I should have grabbed a shot of the press room the writers were in. Aside from the catering, they had a direct window to the paddock area... So, for a different angle, I took a shot from there...



Walk ten feet out of the writers' press room in the other direction, and you've got a perfect view of the track. This photo (taken from right outside the writers' press room) shows a line of photographers waiting for the "walkback" photo, which is literally when the winning horse walks back along the track and into the winner's circle. Notice where they're all standing. And I wore sneakers yesterday!!



Here are bunch more photos. (Hey, it's late and I'm tired. If you want or need more of an explanation than that, e-mail me or leave a comment here!)








And finally some shots from the final race of the day, the $5,000,000 Breeders' Cup Classic - Powered by Dodge!







Hope you've enjoyed seeing the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. That's all for now. Goodnight.

Breeders' Cup (Day 1)

Day one of Breeders' Cup weekend at Monmouth Park was a wet one. Not just rain, but mud, too. To photograph the turf races, the photographers have to walk across the dirt track (mud track) to the rail of the turf track. I was unprepared. My new sneakers are probably toast. But man was it fun! (On my way home I stopped at an Eastern Mountain Sports (Right on Route 35 in Eatontown, directly on my way home! Well done!) and picked up waterproof boots and pants covers... watch tomorrow be 70 degrees and sunny. The forecast does call for more wind and rain, though.) So here are some images.

(The first image is the start of the last race. It was so dark by post-time (I was shooting 1/500 at f2.8 at ISO 1000) so I figured at the start of the race I'd take the slower shutter speed to an extreme and see what happened. It actually ended up being my favorite shot from the entire day.)










The next image is of the photo dungeon, or workroom, they have us set up in. It's funny, the press box for the writers is a large, beautiful, catered affair, all the way at the top of the grandstand, and we photographers are hidden away in the basement (I'll take some shots of the path we have to take to get there tomorrow) and given box lunches. I kid you not. Box lunches. And when I put my bag down (as much a cliche as this sounds, I swear I'm not making it up) a roach scurried out from beneath it... Needless to say, I dined with our writers. :)




On our way out the rain got even harder, so I grabbed another shot just for fun.





Weather.com says more of the same for tomorrow. At least tomorrow I'll be prepared.

Monmouth Park

Monmouth Park opened today, to get two days of racing in before hosting the Breeders' Cup. I guess they want a couple of test runs before they're in the national spotlight. Anyway, it was a rainy, gloomy day today, and not many fans showed up. This is what it looked like. Enjoy.

(The first image was shot from the backstretch, to show the grandstand in the background. Admittedly, it will look much better on Friday and Saturday when there are actually people in the stands....)

Getting Ready

Today was the Post Position Draw Press Conference for the Breeders' Cup World Championship at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, NJ. Here are a few of the trainers following the press conference, talking with the media about their draws.

Todd Pletcher

Greg Gilchrist

Following the press conference, our reporters scurried about the track to find local-angle, feature-type stories to bring the whole national thing home to our Monmouth and Ocean county readers. One of our four reporters found this man, Monmouth Park's "Color Man," who's in charge of all of the jockeys' silks for all races at Monmouth. He is, indeed, a colorful character, as his nickname, "Louie the Color Man," implies.




The next few days for me will be very long, very exciting, and hopefully very rewarding. Tomorrow, Monmouth Park opens for non-Breeders' Cup races, to make sure everything is running smoothly for Friday's and Saturday's festivities. I've got a press conference in the morning, then a few hours to just roam around making pretty feature-type images of horse racing at the "new" Monmouth Park.

Thursday night I'm shooting Bon Jovi as he opens the new arena in Newark. Three songs and out, standard fare.

Then Friday and Saturday I'll be back to all Breeders' Cup coverage. Should be fun. Should wear me out. Good thing I'll be on vacation with my family in two weeks. I'm gonna need it.

Something From Nothing

So the next two weeks here are going to be nothing but Breeders' Cup coverage. We've already covered the renovations being done at Monmouth Park, the local food merchants involved in feeding 40,000 visitors, and press conferences galore. Problem is, until the weekend of the Breeders' Cup, there's really not too much going on. So today I was sent to a press conference at the track, where they announced the pre-entries for the 11 races. (I don't even really know what that means. All I needed was the talking heads at the podium.) After the press conference, I also needed to explore the track, shooting any people, preparation, renovation, or detail. Sure, there were new bleachers erected, but how exciting could I make a photo of chairs?

I got lucky. These are some of the new chairs, along with someone actually doing something!




That's all I've got for now. Check back soon!