Isabelle was lucky enough to win a Gift Certificate for her Horse & Rider Portrait session at the West Texas Reining Horse Association Banquet, when she contacted me she was so excited because she was graduating from High School and knew this session would be perfect for her Senior Portraits. I traveled to Isabelle’s home in Nashville, Arkansas to photograph her with her two reining horses and her Border Collie.

We started out with Isabelle’s horse Simba, Lucky Shining Juice, who is a 3 Year Old Quarter Horse x Paint. Simba is an incredibly beautiful palomino. The pair trains with Heath Jones. Isabelle actually knew Simba’s dad, who was the sweetest stallion she had ever met, so it only made sense that Isabelle was immediately attracted to Simba. Simba is also much more cuddly and tolerant than Isabelle’s other horse, Mo.

Simba’s affectionate personality coupled with the fact that he is a baby, causes him to be a little too much in your pocket at times so they have to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t try to get a cookie when there isn’t actually a cookie for him to grab. I think this is pretty normal for most 3 year old horses that I have met, it is like they find out that cookies exist and they decide that every human must have cookies for them, and then it takes a period of time with no cookies to break them of the habit.

Isabelle’s favorite memory of Simba was when he was learning to run as a yearling, she was videoing him one time and he was really excited and tried to run too fast and turn at the same time which resulted in him falling and sliding for a good ways with his legs in the air and he almost rolled all the way over. Apparently this video was quite the entertainment for weeks on and and people still joke about this stunt that he pulled. I guess it is a good thing that since then he has finally learned the art of running and turning, since Isabelle is working on training him for reining.