Mayberger awarded Eclipse for photography

Bob Mayberger, a New York attorney, won his first Eclipse Award for this panoramic shot underneath the hurdles at Saratoga The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB) announced today that Bob Mayberger of Albany, New York, has won the 2011 Media Eclipse Award for Photography for his panoramic picture of Thoroughbreds jumping over a fence during the Grade 2 A.P. Smithwick Memorial Steeplechase at Saratoga on August 4. The photo appeared on the Sports Illustrated Snapshot web site that same day. This is the first Eclipse Award for Mayberger, 58, a staff photographer for Eclipse Sportswire. For his winning photo, Mayberger, who began taking pictures from the Saratoga grandstand 10 years ago, placed his Nikon D300 remote at the base of the mid-stretch fence at Saratoga, prior to the Smithwick, which was the first race of the day. The picture’s “fisheye” effect captures six horses from the ground-level under an oval shaped, cloud-dotted sky. To the left of photo, three horses are seen leaping over the fence with the tote board as a background, and to the right, the image reveals the sweep of the classic gray Saratoga roof of the grandstand.

“I am unbelievably surprised and happy that I’ve won an Eclipse Award
considering the number of outstanding and talented photographers that
enter the competition each year,” said Mayberger, who photographed 225
stakes races in 2011. “It was a beautiful day at Saratoga and I thought
I would try a fisheye photo on the steeplechase course for the first
time. Steeplechase racing allows you to get a shot of something the
average person doesn’t normally see. I know how lucky I am.”

Mayberger, who is a lawyer at a New York State appeals court, first
gained recognition as a photographer in 2008 for a widely circulated
photo he took of a loose horse shoe on Big Brown during the colt’s
failed attempt to sweep the Triple Crown in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes.

Honorable mention in the Photography category went to Barbara
Livingston for her photograph of a double rainbow over the Twin Spires
of Churchill Downs, which first appeared on the Daily Racing Form
web site on April 30.

Judges in the Photography category were Mike Kane, Thoroughbred
journalist and photographer; John Engelhardt, Director of Publicity at
River Downs, and Dan Johnson, former writer and photographer for the Des
Moines Register.