Race Images began in the 1960's as Photopress under the ownership of the late Ken Lush. Ken was a brilliant and innovative photographer and was the first New Zealand photographer to use a 600mm lens to capture the action shot and switch to a 105mm for his win photograph (using Pentax 6x7cm gear). Many of the older photos appearing on our photo library section are examples of  his fine work.

In 1988 Ken sold the business to Noel Kennard, who also bought Colin Berry's Christchurch photography business and set up an Auckland branch as well. The combined operation was called Race Images and covered both Trotting and Galloping meetings in all but the Southland area. In the early 90's Noel sold the business to his area managers and the three areas then became known as Race Images Christchurch; owned once again by Colin Berry with his son A J as a partner. Race Images Palmerston North was bought by Peter Rubery and the Auckland branch by Steve Quinn who on sold it and since then it has had a couple of owners, the last being Murray Leddington.   After 12 months Murray decided to discontinue his coverage of Gallopng meetings.

Peter Rubery decided in 1997 to sell the Palmerston North Branch to enable him to spend more time with his young family and it was bought by the present owners and keen racing enthusiasts Brian and Jan Yaxley. Brian decided that the Northern area should also be covered and in 2001 employed a photographer to cover that area. He also bought the photo library from that area which began in 1977 and with a few gaps continues to day. The library contained the work of some outstanding photographers including Gavin Adams, Grant Peters and Sharlene Mitchell.

The Central area library goes back to the late 60's and is a great record of racing in the area. Today Kenton Wright is the contracted Northern photographer and we still have Sharlene Mitchell help out occassionally. Brian Yaxley and Peter Rubery who continued to work for Race Images are the Central photographers.

Today we cover the complete North Island and have a  reciprocal arrangement of buying or selling images from the South Island. We continue to get many enquiries about horses raced throughout New Zealand, during the last 50 years.  With our knowlegde of the companies covering racing during that period, and our vast library, we are happy to supply information about photos that are available.