Gabi, Monty & Tilly

Gabi's mum, Yvonne, was drawn as one of my runners up at Thoresby Horse Trials earlier this year. They were absolutely thrilled as they had a very special situation they wanted photographing.

Gabi's horse, Monty, a 16.2Hh 11 year old warmblood, has recently retired from competition due to injury. One of their last events was competing at Hickstead, in which they won a rug. Due to a mix up they didn't get presented the rug on the day, so never got photos of her at Hickstead wearing it.

This became the main photograph they wanted during their shoot, so they had a memory of winning at such a prestigious location.

Gabi also has a gorgeous 6 year old Sports Horse called Tiggy, who is stabled at her workplace about 10 minutes away, so after we'd photographed Monty, we headed there to get some with Tiggy as well.

We chose a beautiful early autumn morning - the sun was bright and all the dew on the grass was just stunning. We decided to get the rug photo done first as this was really important to them. Monty was even plaited up and Gabi wore her show stuff - they looked stunning!

After the rug image Gabi did a quick change into more casual clothes and we used the logs in the field and a bench to get some gorgeous photos of them both chilling together.

We did another outfit change and got a couple more with Monty on the way back. Once he was turned back out I followed them to Tiggy's yard in Linby. We used the school as the first location, using the gate, the mounting block and the edge of the school for some. Being a bit fresh we wanted to make sure Tilly was in a safe space to begin with.

Then Gabi got changed into the most beautiful yellow dress which I LOVED. We used the driveway initially (which was very exciting for Tilly), then moved to a paddock where there were some beautiful stone walls covered in ivy which really made the yellow dress stand out.

I know these photos will mean so much to Gabi and Yvonne for years to come. It was lovely to catch up with them a couple months later and show them their images (and meet all their dogs of course!).