Ronnie Betor Named Winner of ABR Equine Art Contest

Photographer Ronnie Betor of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has been named the first-prize winner of the inaugural ABR Equine Art Challenge for The Road to Sovereignty, her striking image of a harness horse warming up under the lights. Betor will receive $400 and the opportunity to exhibit The Road to Sovereignty at a major racing event.
THE ROAD TO SOVEREIGNTY

Second prize ($100) also went to a photograph – Ciara Bowen’s Dedication, a nearly abstract composition that reveals itself to be a tight look at a horse’s neck and mane with bulging veins and a dangling rein.
DEDICATION

Third place ($25) was awarded to Brittany Brett for her oil painting High Pulse, a portrait of two racehorses and jockeys parading side-by-side with ponies and outriders, creating a dizzying cluster of riders, horse heads, legs and hooves.
HIGH PULSE

Winners were selected by guest jurors Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Ky.; Cameron Shaw, Executive Director and Founding Editor of Pelican Bomb, a contemporary visual arts organization based in New Orleans; and Edward Waites, a successful young equine sculptor based in England.
Artworks were judged “blindly,” with each object assigned a random number for identification purposes. Having no knowledge of the artists’ names or backgrounds, jurors ranked their 10 preferred works. Points were assigned accordingly on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.
The remainder of the top 10, previously announced (listed alphabetically by artist, with title and medium) are: Casey Brister, The Real Payoff, graphite pencil on multi-media paper; Robert Clark, Backtalk, oil on linen; Judith Kennedy, Zinner Kronbach Horse Hysteria!, acrylic; Daniel van Bilderbeek, Atma Jnana, oil on canvas; Joy Walsh, Dappled Gray, oil on canvas; Ken Wilson, Chromie, oil painting; and William Wilson, Hard Tack, oil on panel.