An Evening at Retama
Though I’ve never been someone to manically follow careers of race horses and make sure I watch every single stakes race on television, I do appreciate horse racing. I’m a fairly terrible track photographer, but find horse racing so visually fascinating that I never pass up an opportunity to go with my camera.
When a friend of a friend had a few horses running in the Saturday night meet, I jumped at the invitation to shoot some races before it got too dark for my camera to keep up. I furiously snapped photos for about four races before I lost the light.
It was a lot more fun watching the races when I had a specific horse to cheer for, and as an added bonus my friend’s second horse won so I got to stand in my first winner’s picture! Now I’m hooked on racing and looking to start up a syndicate… any takers?
Today’s post is mostly a photo dump because I have a lot more photos than words to share about my evening. If you live in Texas and haven’t checked out Retama, you should! It’s a really nice, albeit small, track and has a very family-friendly vibe to it.
17 thoughts on “An Evening at Retama”
Visually fascinating indeed! Great shots, I’ve always loved the lead ponies.
Um, I’m not sure where you got your information about being a crappy track photographer, but it was the wrong place. Those were awesome, especially given the low light!
I definitely agree with you on it being visually fascinating. I just love it. There isn’t anything else like it. The saddling paddock is my favorite place to soak it all in. And photograph.
I have a REALLY hard time with the timing of galloping shots. They go soooo fast and even when I hold my finger on the shutter to rapid fire, it’s hard for me to track the winner versus just witnessing a giant clump of horses run past me.
I think the track is a very interesting place for sure.
Great photos! Love the colors, love the expressions on both the human and horse faces.
Lots of really great photos!
i love your photos – you caught so many wonderful expressions, equine and human! actually i really like the light too!
Love the colors in the photos, and the bits! The bits are… SO WEIRD. Anyone know what the one with the ring on it is???
A tiny bit of googling leads me to believe a Dexter ring bit.
Yup. Ring bit. I have one because of course I do.
Great photos. I love going to the track. That’s so cool you got to go in the winner’s circle.
Having lived in Saratoga, I totally get you here! I wish I’d had a nice camera back when I used to visit the track. That’s extra fun that your friend had horses running and WINNING!
That grey with the yellow blinder mask thing with the W on it trots really cute! These are really neat photos.
All that eye candy!
My friend bets on the horses at Retama when they aren’t running here at Sam Houston. If you’re ever out this way, we can definitely do the track. They also run all kinds of things to draw people in- camel races, weiner dogs, silly stuff
I Love the pics. Especially the he’d shot of the grey and the last one, the chestnut…. those eyes!
Great shots!
I love the bay with the big blaze (#2)
Such gorgeous photos!
I for one will never tire of looking at pictures of horses
Best of luck with starting your syndicate & congrats on your friends horse’s win