Equine journalist and photographer, Barbara Sheridan, received second place honours at the 2015 Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation (CFWF) Awards Banquet this past Sept 26th.

Founded in 1955, CFWF serves the common interests of agricultural journalists, including reporters, editors and broadcasters as well as those in business and government whose primary responsibility is agricultural communications. The Don Baron Award, presented at the annual conference held this year in Calgary, Alberta, was open to photographs published by a Canadian medium that accompanies written copy on an agricultural topic to improve the editorial story telling capacity of the medium. “It was tricky capturing the action shot,” explained Sheridan. “I only had the opportunity to shoot off a couple of frames before I had to get out of the fire fighter’s way.”

Of course, a dynamic shot, such as this, comes with an interesting story. First appearing in FIREFighting in Canada magazine, the image was captured during a training exercise led by Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue (TLAER) and hosted by Equine Guelph in the fall of 2014. Dr. Rebecca Gimenez, world renowned TLAER instructor, came back to lead a sold out second round of this important training in October 2015, again hosted by Equine Guelph. “This news is a double delight” says, Gayle Ecker, director of Equine Guelph, “spreading the word about safety and welfare for horses through fantastic training programs and honoring a great photographer, who also happens to be the instructor for Equine Guelph’s online Journalism course. Congratulations Barbara!”

Barbara Sheridan is an award-winning journalist and former magazine editor, as well as instructor teaching the online Equine Journalism course that is part of the Equine Studies Diploma from Equine Guelph at the University of Guelph.