I like the stud, and I like the mare.

And I sympathize regarding getting confo shots that don't look like complete and total crappola. I was a reporter, for Pete's sakes, I took my own photos, including wild art, that run on the front page (not the NYT, but a decent small town paper) and I can't take horse pics worth anything.

Of course, I'm trying to do it totally alone, with nobody holding the horses. I'm running around behind my mares with the camera in one hand, pulling tails out of the way with the other, then getting weird angles and blurred images and floppy ears, and pictures that make the Arab look like her head is about 1/3 the size it should be, and about 20 feet from her rear...or pics that make her neck look short and her hindquarters bizarre.

And don't even get me started on trying to get her to square up her back feet. She stands with one or the other cocked, and if I'm taking the pictures, I can't get those stupid feet straight. She also stands with them almost wrapped around each other, so it looks like one big leg instead of one. The rest of the time she's showing her teeth or snaking her head around something.

But it's a work in progress. I'm putting my 6 y.o. girl to work tomorrow, we WILL get some decent shots of Ruby.

As far as Purdy goes, what you see is what you get. We love her even if she is as long as a train and truly canted out in the back. She has the softest nose in the world, and that's all we care about. It's sort of fun to take ugly pictures of her. But dammit, it's also aggravating because her legs NEVER look funky, and I don't care what her legs look like!