Beyond Second: Discover Harrisburg Through Photography

I was helping out one of the vendors at the 2008 PA National Horse Show on Tuesday, October 14th and had some time to sit in the stands to check out some of the competition.  There was someone out on the track covering the event's photography, shooting with a flash.  I was seated in the stands, along the rail in the front, carefully positioned at this particular jump.  It was extremely difficult trying to get this shot without a flash, but I didn't want to be the "jerk" with the "flash" that caused a horse to make a mistake and cost a rider a potential position or ranking.  So I just followed the rider as good as I could around the final turn to the last two jumps and tried to get the camera focused on them while snapping at just the right moment.  This is about the best I could do after about 10 attempts.  I'm sure there are better ways to adjust the camera settings for things like this, but I was always under the impression that the flash is what freezes the target for that brief instant to capture it.  This was the first time I ever really tried to photograph moving action like this so I'm also sure there is plenty I could learn.