Trotting to (and across) the beach

Thursday 4 August 2022, 16:08 by Martin van Rooij | 3,304 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

It had been my daughter's long-held wish: to go on a beach ride with her own horse. But it seemed to be cursed. Twice, she broke her collarbone while horse riding, then she fractured her pelvis and tore a ligament in her ankle.

1/4000 s, f/4.5, ISO 400 @ 105mm
Enjoying a gallop along the beach
The long-held wish was repeatedly put off. But this year it finally happened. It was quite an undertaking. With a special lorry and a horse trailer behind it, four horses left Heeze for Vrouwenpolder in the early hours of Sunday morning, 18 April.

You need to prepare properly for a day like this. On most beaches, especially during the high season, you are only allowed to ride on the beach for a limited number of hours, usually early in the day.

That means getting up early, because you don't want to spend around six hours on the road for just an hour of riding, including collecting and returning the lorry.

It is also a good idea to plan the trip for low tide. That gives you a wide beach to use. At high tide, there is often only a narrow strip of beach left, which you have to share with walkers and which is also made up of loose sand.

So much for the organisational details. On to the photos.

1/4000 s, f/4.5, 400 ISO @ 105mm
Horses can react very differently on the beach. Some are almost impossible to hold back and race along the waterline. They initially find stepping into the water a little scary, but after a while they seem to start enjoying it.
I didn't stage anything. The group walked, trotted and galloped up and down a few times. The light was lovely: sunshine, blue skies, but without overly harsh contrasts. And then I just kept snapping. Lots of snapping!

Focusing is a bit of a thing with moving subjects. I still have room for improvement there...

1/4000 s, f/4.5, iso 400, 105mm
Driver Paul talking to his wife Carla. The horse also seems to be involved in the conversation, or at least listening attentively.
I thought the photo of Paul and Carla with their horse was the best one. Carla seems to be communicating with both her husband and her horse. A point of self-criticism: the photo might have been even stronger if the horse's and Carla's feet had been in the frame.

They thought it was a lovely picture too. As a thank you for driving, they received a beautiful print of the photo on a linen canvas. It now hangs in the hall of their home.

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