First off, I hate writing posts like this because they make me really sad.  I have a habit of becoming emotionally attached to the horses I work with.  I’ve been criticised for this  but in my defence getting emotionally involved with the horses I photograph means I to do a better, more thorough and complete job.  The horses are the reason I get up in the dark at Stupid O’Clock and drive for 90 mins to photograph a horse at trackwork or the beach (or drive 1500km to a stud farm laden with equipment).  It’s why I run back and forth from mounting yard to horse stalls on raceday, even when my feet, neck and shoulders are aching from carrying heavy equipment.  Why I sit for hours researching bloodlines and race records, and why I get up early and stagger in the door after midnight when doing a day trip flying between Melbourne and Sydney, or Melbourne and Brisbane. When I got an email from one of my favourite people in the industry telling me the stallion we al...

“I’ve been here before” - it’s a line from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as he stood up in the graveyard about to face Lord Voldemort.  I reckon it’s how we in Victoria are starting to feel, except Lord Voldemort is replaced by the dreaded phrases “mystery cases” and “not in isolation during their infectious period” .  This time we only came out of Lockdown for 7 days.  Yesterday we were, yet again, told we were not permitted to work at the racetrack. It becomes a little soul destroying after awhile.  And it was made worse because our counterparts in NSW were allowed to work at Royal Randwick, despite the severity of the outbreak in Greater Sydney.  It kind of rubbed salt into a wound that just won’t heal.  And as much as we try to remain optimistic it is difficult not to spiral down into the pit of despair at times. I often worry about how it feels for those who have contracted the virus, which largely isn’t their fault.  They wouldn’t have k...