2025 Black Hills Stock Show | Renowned Equine Photographer Larry Larson Retires
Larry Larson is well known in the horse world, with a career showcasing years of championships and associations with industry greats, both human and equine alike. His success came through a self-driven passion for horses, good mentors and great opportunities, and a lot of wet saddle blankets.
As the third of four brothers and the only family member with an interest in horses, Larson said he “begged, borrowed and stole horses from friends for years,” before he eventually got his first horse – a bay gelding named Honda. “My Dad and a very tolerant rancher named Fritz Wientjes worked out a unique payment plan, which included deliveries of cases of canned food and cartons of cigarettes bartered from our family store,” said Larson. Needless to say, his first horse was a challenge with lessons learned.
Growing up in the ranch country of north central South Dakota, Larson was exposed to the horse industry in all facets from rodeo to ranching to the horse show arena from a young age and said it has been a lifelong addiction for him. His family owned a general store in the small town of Wakpala, on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and Larson he is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. They moved to Mobridge in 1963 to continue their educations, where Larson graduated in 1972.
During high school Larson worked for a time at a fledgling race stable owned by Bill Mott, the son of the Mobridge veterinarian. Mott was a year ahead of Larson in school, attended the same church and trained racehorses throughout high school. Upon graduation Mott moved up to the bigger tracks, eventually becoming the trainer of the champion racehorse Cigar and most recently, Codys Wish: 2023 Horse of the Year with two Breeders Cup Championships and earnings of $3 million. Mott is still a leading trainer at Churchill Downs and other major Thoroughbred racetracks across the nation.
“I was initially drawn to AQHA events by befriending at a young age and closely observing several men in the industry, including Bill McNeil who owned an immaculate acreage and facility on the eastern edge of Aberdeen, and Tom Eliason from west of Gettysburg,” said Larson. “McNeil was gifted with an amazing eye for quality Quarter Horses and knew how to fit and market them in a very professional manner.” Eliason, an AQHA judge, ran a band of broodmares and showed successfully in almost every AQHA show event offered with an eventual AQHA World Championship in roping.
After showing in 4-H with a borrowed saddle, he qualified for the state show for several years. The gelding Steel Gold came into Larson’s life in the mid-1970s. They showed in western pleasure and Larson captured his first Grand Championship in halter at the Fort Meade Quarter Horse Show near Sturgis in 1977. “The judge pointed at me and I looked behind us to see who had been named the Grand Champion Gelding, not believing it was actually us with the win,” he said. “I still have that trophy displayed today.”
For about 20 years, starting in the early 70s, Larson showed professionally for others while hauling a few of his own home-raised horses within a 500-mile radius of Mobridge.
“I only had one broodmare named Big Red Princess – a Sugar Bars bred mare I bought on impulse as Lot 1 at the first National Western Stock Show I’d ever attended in Denver in 1982, bred each year to different stallions and she was a producer!” he said. “After showing her a year I decided to breed her to Joe Quincy, a young stallion I had shown earlier to may wins, Par For The Course, Southern R Cross and Inspirative before eventually losing her to colic.”
Her second foal, named Parsuasive, was sired by Par For The Course, a full brother to AQHA Hall of Fame Inductee Zan Parr Bar. She was shown to multiple AQHA class and futurity wins as a foal while still on the mare. She sold that fall into Wyoming and became an AQHA Champion, Superior Halter and Superior Western Pleasure and Canadian National Champion while earning a few barrel racing points along the way.
“At the summer show in Sioux Falls in 1984 my broodmare, her foal Parsuasive and her yearling filly The Widow Quincy were all in the same Grand and Reserve class – an unusual occurrence even today,” said Larson.
Larson’s last homebred foal, Inspired By Money, was sired by Inspirative by Impressive, and he showed her as a weanling and yearling to many class, futurity and year end award wins, then showed her in western pleasure as a 2- and 3-year-old in classes and futurities.
After managing the Oahe Veterinary Clinic in Mobridge starting in 1973, Larson relocated west to Rapid City in October of 1984 and moved into an apartment above the newly-opened Hart Ranch arena, giving riding lessons and producing a new horse sale he called the ‘Hart of the Hills’ for two years.
“One of my riding students was an 8-year-old girl and her father, an ophthalmologist, came to watch her ride one Saturday,” said Larson. “The next week he offered me a position working with him at the new Black Hills Regional Eye Institute. I was being ‘silently interviewed’ that day during a riding lesson.”
Besides working at the Eye Institute, Larson continued to train for the family and eventually managed their new Skyline Meadows Stable near Rapid City for several more years. Still employed full time, he recently ended his 40th year at the facility in December of 2024, working on the surgery floor for the past 25 years alongside a talented team of surgeons and medical staff.
“After a slight burnout in the showpen in 1991, I made the decision to offer equine photography even though I had no experience with cameras,” Larson said. “My years of show experience helped guide me and give me an eye for the finished images, both in and out of the arena. There were rarely photographers at shows during my two decades of showing professionally. In 1991, someone was taking photos at the Central States Fair show and I didn’t have any of my three-year-old mare on the rail – or my customer’s horses – so I ordered a copy even though I knew it was captured on the wrong diagonal and extremely out of focus. I wondered if someone can sell this type of work what could I offer the public with a quality product. I spent a week in Grapevine, Texas with respected equine photographer Don Shugart at his last photography clinic and came home to photograph a five-day Quarter Horse Show Circuit the next weekend.
“I’m extremely fortunate to have started with film cameras to learn and understand manual camera settings. With digital many just set to auto and let the camera decide. Digital cameras have made everyone a photographer. I used film until 2003 and ventured into the digital era by flying to Ocala, Florida in the spring of 2004 and training with leading equine photographers Jeff Kirkbride and Larry Williams – eventually purchasing the same Nikon D1X and full setups they were using.”
Still unsure of this new digital craze, Larson kept his film camera loaded in the backseat of his car for the first year, just in case the digital wasn’t going to work for him. He remembers the first horse he photographed with digital was Sheza Fabulous, sired by Frenchmans Fabulous offered by the Fulton Ranch in the 2004 Myers and Fulton Performance Horse Prospect Sale. She was purchased by Blake Knowles and carried him to several of his five NFR qualifications.
“Something I’ve learned from experience is photographers are only as good as the subjects put in front of our cameras. We’re not miracle workers and Photoshop can’t always fix most things. I try to choose my backgrounds carefully and not be reliant on Photoshopping more than necessary. The less you mess with editing, the more natural your images will be. Keep it simple,” Larson said.
Larson hosted annual equine photography clinics in Rapid City starting in 1996. They were originally at the Hart Ranch followed by the Papendicks’ Highview Ranch just south of Rapid City for the past twenty years. Additional classes have been offered in Laramie, Wyoming and Anchorage, Alaska. While promoting ranches across the nation with photography, promotional ads, websites and sale catalog design, Larson is also a freelance writer for numerous national equine publications covering sales and events since 1991 and a past judge for the American Horse Publications contest for all national equine breed publications.
“I managed, photographed and helped organize the Black Hills Stock Show Winter Classic Quarter Horse Show and the Black Hills Summer Circuit and Central States Fair Quarter Horse Show Circuit for 20 years. I was the official photographer for the AQHA Region Two Championship Show, the South Dakota Paint Horse Association Futurity Show in Sioux Falls and for 20 years the South Dakota State 4-H Show in Huron. I also photographed and covered the Fizz Bomb Barrel Futurity in Gillette, Wyoming, the 5-State Breeders Futurity in Rapid City and the Torrington, Wyoming Barrel Futurity for many years along with the South Dakota Reined Cow Horse Association and South Dakota Cutting Horse Futurities in Rapid City.”
As part of the initial planning stages of all the AQHA Regional Experiences (now called Regional Championships), Larson flew to Amarillo and met with AQHA staff and others from across the nation to formulate ideas on implementing the new shows. It was a success and Region Two in Rapid City remains today as the largest Regional Championship in the nation.
“For 33 years, my summers and paid leave from my full-time job evolved around shows, ranch calls and designing sale catalogs to meet deadlines, mainly right over the Fourth of July. I’ve decided it’s time for me and things I have put off all these years. I’ve watched weather, fought flies and wind, worked around stallion breeding days, traveled late at night and early mornings, set up and torn down… all part of the profession I chose and met with passion. It will be a huge lifestyle change for me, but I’m ready.”
Larson said his regular customers became like family over the years, and that he has no regrets.
Following his treatment for Lymphoma cancer in 2007, Larson was invited to ride AQHA Hall of Fame Inductee and multiple AQHA World Champion Harley D Zip, owned by the Papendick Family of Rapid City, at a “Rein In Cancer” fundraiser event during one night of finals at the 2009 AQHA World Championship Show in Oklahoma City. “It was an evening I will never forget – both emotional and humbling,” he said.
Larson holds life memberships in the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), South Dakota Quarter Horse Association (SDQHA) and Center of the Nation Quarter Horse Association. He has been an active SDQHA member for 52 years and served as the SDQHA President in 1999. He was also a member of the Rapid City Quarter Horse Association for 30 years, and served as president, vice president, director, editor, point secretary and many other capacities in all of these associations as needed since the early 1970s.
His AQHA affiliations include serving as a National Director (elected in 2000), Director At Large (elevated in 2015), AQHA Foundation Ambassador, member of their Heritage Society, and on the Marketing, International and Hall of Fame Selection Committees. He has also been honored as the South Dakota Horseman of the Year (2016), Black Hills Stock Show Horseman of the Year (2019), AQHA Region 2 Don Brunner Grit & Perseverance Award (2017), SDQHA Legacy Honoree (2024) and most recently as a judge for the 2024 Miss Rodeo America Pageant at the 2023 National Finals Rodeo.
Bill and Deb Myers of St. Onge, South Dakota, own Myers Performance Horses and need little introduction as owners of the legendary stallion Frenchman’s Guy. Bill Myers said Larson has been an integral part of their success story.
“Larry has been involved in our program for a long time – I can’t even remember how long – making our sale catalogs and doing horse photography,” said Myers. “His workmanship is second to none; he never settles for a halfway job and has a great eye for horses and conformation.”
Myers said Larson was instrumental in the process of nominating Frenchman’s Guy in 2023 to the AQHA Hall of Fame after his death in 2021. He was nationally announced as a part of the AQHA “Class of 2024” at the AQHA Convention in Las Vegas in March. His formal induction was held in early September at the AQHA Hall Of Fame headquarters in Amarillo.
“Larry has been dedicated to our program through the years; he believes in us and believes in our horses,” said Myers. “But more than just a professional relationship, we’ve become very good friends with Larry through the years. We appreciate him more that words can express.”
From receiving national recognition and now into his seventh decade of life, Larson is quick to acknowledge those who helped him get where he is at. “I feel those initial years of being mentored by others and my own years of experience in the arena were merely stepping stones playing a huge part in what I’ve done and continue to do today,” he said. “I’m an all-or-nothing type with everything I choose to be involved in, and I feel a little perfectionism plays a huge role in every aspect of my life. I’ve always lived by the motto ‘Do it with passion or not at all’. I sure wouldn’t have changed a thing.”