Meet Sarah and her 14 year old gelding, Badger. Sarah had been dropping hints about having a shoot gift voucher for quite some time now - and luckily enough, her daughter Rosie had taken note of the hints quite some time before and had organised the gift for Christmas!
Sarah has recently lost lots of weight so she wanted the shoot to mark that achievement! Although she said she was really nervous on the day as she really hates being infront of the camera - hopefully it was bareable and it eventually became enjoyable!
Badger was bathed the day before and looked very handsome indeed! Sarah had gotten to the yard early that morning expecting to have to give him another bath, but to her suprise he hadn't managed to lie in poo overnight! Rosie came along to the shoot to lend a hand too - they share Badger who they have owned for 2 years.
Originally from Ireland, Badger was owned by a friend where he started his life as a trotter before turning his hoof to something more sedate - giving beach rides to tourists! Together with Sarah and Rosie, he enjoys learning lots of new things and trying a bit of everything.
As I arrived, Sarah showed me the mountain of clothes she had in her car! She said she couldn't decide so needed help from Rosie and I - there was everything from a summer dress to a ball gown, to her show gear and floral tops! After settling on a few different change of clothes we began! Rosie led Badger down to the indoor school with Sarah and I following behind in the car. Badger looked super smart with the black background behind him - the ladies then took it in turns to hop on Badger bareback - he took it all in his stride, they weren't quite sure what he was going to be like! We twigged that he much prefered bending one way than to the other for the black background shots, but he was a complete dude about the whole experience!
Across the geldings field was a knee-high hay crop full of different grass colours and flowers - after battling our way through the other nosey horses who were very interested in what we were up to - we plonked everything down and Sarah put on a very pretty summer dress!
The flies were bothering Badger so we tried to keep moving around to make it slightly better for him! He definately didn't help speed things up though by not putting his ears forward - Rosie was trying everything to get them forward but he wasn't taking the slight bit of notice! However, he did like looking the opposite way to where we wanted, with his ears forward of course!
It was a very warm morning but the slight hazy cloud cover provided us with a beautiful light to work in - thank you ladies for a lovely morning and I'm really glad you love the images, Sarah!
