Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Seeing Stars

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Mystic Journey winning the 2019 All Star Mile

This coming Saturday I’m looking forward to attending the All Star Mile meeting at Flemington, and hopefully getting better photos than I  managed on Super Saturday last weekend.

Imagine my horror when I viewed my photos last week and discovered that most, if not all of them, were blurred and unfixable, but such was the case.

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Roch ‘n’ Horse – 100/1  shot winner of the 2022 Newmarket Handicap

After much thought on what may have caused this problem, I finally realised that the Auto Focus button on my lens was turned off. I must admit I was puzzled when looking at the settings on my camera that the Auto Focus options were greyed out and inaccessible, but thought little of it at the time as my photos on the camera screen seemed to be OK.

Anyway it was a waste of a sunny day and a salutary lesson I won’t forget in a hurry.

Goodness knows how the Auto Focus button came to be turned off as I always leave those buttons well alone. An inadvertent slip of the finger perhaps resulted in this grievous error.

This year will be the fourth running of the All Star Mile, and I’ve attended all but one – in 2020 Covid restrictions prevented public attendance at the event.

Last year the All Star Mile was run at Moonee Valley and it was a miserable rainy day, so hopefully the weather will be kinder this year; forecast to be partly cloudy and a dry 26°C.

A field of 15 runners will be contesting the race, headed by star performers Zaaki and Inspirational Girl who clashed in the Blamey Stakes recently with Inspirational Girl proving the winner on that occasion. Also in the mix are Group 1 winners such as I’m Thunderstruck , Tofane and Sierra Sue, as well several three year olds – Captivant, Lightsaber and Pinstriped.  Alas Hitotsu’s connections did not accept his  wild card nomination.

The rest of the card is bit ho hum, but at least will afford an opportunity for photography practice.

I’m pleased to see that the All Star Mile will be run mid afternoon at 3.40 pm, so it won’t be a terribly long day trackside.

It’s Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill this Saturday, so it will break up the afternoon pleasantly watching the Sydney racing action on the big screen.

2 comments:

Bec said...

Sorry to hear about your camera woes for Super Saturday. You would have been gutted.
I hope all went well yesterday fir the All Star Mile!

Anne S said...

Thanks Bec, It was a pity about Super Saturday, but I had my camera settings right for the All Star Mile and got some good shots of Zaaki which was my main aim of the day.

I'm still sorting the photos and will blog about the time I spent at Flemington yesterday soon.