PONIES

If you’ve ever looked around a racetrack and thought, Surely this is an art installation, you and Kate Kidney Bishop might share a brain cell. Following CORE, her editorial photobook playing with gender, muscle, and myth-making, Kate returns with PONIES — a photobook that peers at gender, class, and culture through the oddly intimate theatre of horse racing. Think bright silks, betting booths in clown-colour palettes, and the peculiar aristocracy of people who wear velvet at 10 a.m.

This time, Kate swaps high-concept styling for a more documentary approach. PONIES extends her ongoing fascination with the ways identity bends, stretches, and occasionally breaks under the pressure of sport. But it also lingers on the micro-rituals of equestrian life — the social codes, the hierarchies, the choreography of bodies that know exactly where to stand. Ahead of the book’s December 13th launch at London’s Photobook Café, we spoke with Kate about finding beauty in unexpected corners of tradition, the serendipity of female jockeys, and why sometimes the most inclusive spaces are the ones we least expect.

Hi Kate! What initially drew you to horse racing as a subject?
Sports are pretty foreign to me. I’m from a sporty country but have basically 0 athletic ability. However, when I was at uni we did a module on performance art. The idea of sport being seen as a performance art was very briefly mentioned, but it opened up my vision to how I could relate to them – a form of art and artistic performance. I then became interested in the fashion statements within sports. I ended up writing my dissertation on youth and gender identity within women’s singles figure skating. Particularly my case studies during writing my dissertation brought me to searching for how space could be made in competitive sports for the entire gender spectrum to compete. My previous photobook, co-created with Celia Croft ‘Core’, looked at the gender identity bending tendencies in body building, and the interaction between hyper alignment with gender identity stereotypes, and defying of gender stereotypes. I always knew I wanted ‘CORE’ to be part of a continued series. Horse racing, or rather, looking at jockeys, came to me when, one way or another, I found myself attending a horse race for the first time in my life. I noticed that many of the jockeys were female. I didn’t know much more about horse racing than the jokey family sweep we used to have growing up for the Melbourne Cup, so I was really surprised by this. I found it fascinating that a sport that is perceived as pretty traditional, and sometimes outdated, was held so much potential space for accommodating the whole gender spectrum to compete side by side. Races aren’t divided into binary genders like most other sports. Genders race together. Also, the bright colours of the betting booths and silks are super photogenic.

How did you approach styling and creative direction for PONIES? Is the book mostly editorial, or more documentary?
This one is almost all documentary. CORE was pretty much all editorial. We were shooting just after COVID when things were still opening up, so while we would have loved to attend body building competitions and add in some more documentary photography, it was too logistically tricky. For PONIES, there are some more editorial style portraits, but generally, it more oberserves while at the races. I loved all of the colours at the races, and the best way to meet the jockeys I was speaking to and capture them in their silks and authentically, was to meet up with them at the races.

What was your process for gaining access to the people and spaces you photographed? Horse racing feels like a pretty closed-off world? Did you have to infiltrate or were people open?
I actually started the research process three years ago now. I began by posting on facebook groups and social media. I spoke to a horse trainer called George. I also spoke to an ex jockey and now black cab driver, interviewing them via phone on my daytime job lunch breaks. I then got in contact with some currently competing jockeys. I first spoke to Brendan Powell and then Molly Gunn, who were amazingly helpful and welcoming. I met Brendan later on in the process in Warwick and photographed him. I also spoke to the jockey Conner Maxwell and Ryan Mania and ex jockey Rachel. I then spoke to a racehorse breeder, and when I went to the races to photograph them, I would also speak to people there. You can see this in the book – I’d often speak to people and get to know them, and then if they felt comfortable, take their portrait to be included. Some people asked me to take their photo!

Who did you collaborate with on the book, and what did each bring to the final outcome?
The beautiful Charlotte Grocutt did all of the book design. I spent a bit over two years researching and then photographing for the book. I came to Charlotte when I was ready to actually build it into a layout and bring everything to life. Charlotte suggested using high gloss paper to me, which was transformative in not only further referencing the different sides of the attendees of horse races, but also in the final images selected. Charlotte also helped with planning the fundraisers, sales platforms and the launch. She is the best ever.

Were there any unexpected stories or encounters during the making of PONIES that stayed with you?
I found myself identifying with Molly Gunn’s journey into the horse racing industry, because it’s similar to how I came to work in fashion. I also discovered amateur racing and pony racing through my research conversations. I did take portraits of some pony jockeys, but in the end, we decided not to publish these portraits because of logistical difficulties.

What have you learned from self-publishing? Any advice for others trying to make independent print projects happen in 2025?
Fundraising is key, and getting people to spread the word. Also, the obvious creative advice of not forcing anything. PONIES changed forms constantly. It’s been through a thousand name changes. For a lot of the process, it was actually named ‘Pradatonada’, after a racehorse that I saw on a bet slip and found funny. I was set on it being a thick book at one point, but decided adding pages just to have more pages would weaken it as a whole. I create these books really more as brief studies into sporting worlds unknown to me. I think it’s good to accept yourself as a voyager and think about what that means.

What do you hope people take away from PONIES when they spend time with it?
I think with any photo I take, my hope is that the viewer walks away feeling something from it. My hope for PONIES is that people feel something from the images.