On 26th February 2019 my local camera club held a "Show and Tell" evening for members to show and talk about photographs on a visit or trip.

I choose the 150th running of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby at the Curragh race course 20 miles or so west of Dublin in Ireland on the 27th June 2015.

The first Irish Derby was held in 1866 with a first prize of £421. The prize for the winner in 2015 was 725,000 Euros with a total prize fund of 1,25 Million Euros. 

The race was run over a distance of 1.5 miles.

The round trip for me was approximately 300 miles - I left home at !0:30 in the morning, arriving at the Curragh at 13:00 for the first race at 15:00. I arrived back home at 23:30.

I had 5 photographs published in the Belfast News Letter. 

I took 1,261 photographs over the day and published 608 on my web site:

https://www.hmphotographs.com/f483823752
 

Photographs in the Show and Tell are at: 

https://www.hmphotographs.com/p80991667
 

Winner - Jack Hobbs ridden by William Buick - Pic 1This is the winner just about to cross the finishing line. The horse is named Jack Hobbs and was ridden by William Buick, trained by John Godson and owned by Godolfin.
The race was over 1.5 miles and the winner took 2 minutes 30 seconds which is an average of 52 feet per second. My camera was capable of taking 10 frames a second so the the distance travelled between frames was about 5 feet. It was probably greater than 5 feet as the horse would have been travelling fastest at the finish. This distance was important to me as I was trying to get the horse placed in front of the hoarding to show the race details to give the photograph context.
The photograph was taken with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 Zoom lens with camera settings of f3.2, shutter speed of 1/1000 and ISO 400. The time was 18:30 in the evening and the light was good.
Where to stand was limited, accreditied photographs could stand where I took this photograph or on the other side of the track. The other side would have allowed me to capture a photograph of the horse crossing the finishing line with the crowd in the background but no hoardings. After much thought I decided the stand with the hoarding in the background though on reflection I think I would have got a more dramatic photograph on the other side with the crowd included but would not have got the context of the race.