Horse and Rider Session // Karlee & Quintessential Q

I adore photographing horse & rider partnerships multiple times and getting to build more concrete relationships with my amazing clients. Every partnership between horse & rider is dynamic and growing, and getting to revisit those that I have previously photographed allows me to see and capture this growth. In the case of Karlee and Q, this growth was a bit more literal, as Q was several inches taller than when I had last visited in December and had certainly transformed from a still baby 5 year old, to an impressive, and huge, 6 year old! Of course, Karlee still calls him a baby horse, and is pretty sure she always will, the mindset of having him as a 3-year-old doesn’t leave her, no matter how tall he gets!

Karlee and Q were as darling as ever, and so much fun to spend time with! Even though Q is technically not a baby horse, I am still impressed by his unfazed and chill attitude every time I see him, although it did make for a challenge getting his ears forwards! What may have started as a project horse, and an unbroken three-year-old has transformed into a magnificent horse, with talent to spare and clearly a forever spot in Karlee’s heart. It is obvious that these two share a connection unlike any other, built through challenges and learning together over the last two years.

It is obvious that the sky is the limit for these two and although show season might have slowed, it hasn’t dampened their plans to show, hopefully in August, and move up the levels. I’m a bit biased for a quarter horse jumper, especially one with a story so similar to my own and so I am so excited to see what the future holds for this pair! It’s not every day you see a quarter horse with enough talent to compete in the upper levels against the thoroughbreds and warmbloods and I just love that these two are challenging the norm, and collecting a lot of ribbons while doing it! At the end of the day though, what matters more than all the ribbons, or the height of the jumps, is the smile that Karlee gets when she looks at Q!