I hadn’t been to Mordialloc Beach in ages, possibly not since Nelly was racing.  More recently it was Altona that we journeyed to in the early hours of the morning (being a 1.5 hour drive from home).  Mordialloc is much closer to home, only taking about 35 mins at an early hour.  It was fun to be back at “Nelly’s Beach” and getting the Ciaron Maher/David Eustace runners like Cox Plate winner SIR DRAGONET and smart sprinter ANDERS, as well as a big team from Micky Price’s stable, including G1 Thousand Guineas winner ODEUM, who is a real doll.

  The call it The Race Where Legends are Made.  It is run at The Valley, or The Cauldron as we like to call it.  Like many things in 2020 this year’s renewal was a sobering and sad reminder of what we lost.  A Cox Plate without crowds. Darryl Braithwaite singing ‘The Horses’ to a handful of people there in a purely working capacity.  As they ran clips of previous winners, filled with cutaways to joyous scenes of the crowd interacting with each famous winner of one of our most prestigious races, I could feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes and I had to walk away.   The race was won by the imported SIR DRAGONET.  He’s a really nice horse and he gave Bossy another Cox Plate victory and Ciaron Maher and David Eustace their first winner in the race.  We’d photographed the horse in the 2019 Epsom Derby, a moment that felt like a lifetime ago when he swept past me at the 150m to victory. So glad to be there though.   We’d been forced off trac...

It's true, the GREAT LOCKDOWN has absolutely sucked.  I wasn't expecting disaster to hit Melbourne, neither did I ever expect the gorgeous rural neck of the woods I live in to be classed as part of Melbourne, but there you go.  It's rendered me stuck at home for the best part of 7 months, and that's been lousy although it turns out I'm pretty handy at painting wooden spoons.  Who knew.....   See, there's a little thing called "Spoonville" going on in Melbourne, it's really cute, it started after the teddies bears went out, and is our way of saying to each other 'we'll get there!'. However there has been a couple of positives to come out of THE GREAT LOCKDOWN, which chained me to my house unable to work.  See, I've been hard at work designing a series of products for sale.  So, I'm really excited to announce that The Image is Everything's brand new 2021 Stallion Wall Calendars, and a lovely series of MOUSEPADS are now availab...

Yes, it really does feel like the lights have gone back on, and that the sun is finally shining again.  The gorgeous sunrise and fog this morning at our local Balnarring Beach proves it too!  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  Case numbers are coming down.  The Great Lockdown CANNOT last forever!