Need help with post processing

[EquineArt]

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6079/6138076969_f5a6f9ac9e_b_d.jpg

Ok had a horse assignment today, and the stallion part was indoors.... low light, high speed, aweful conditions.... almost got run over by the stallion on the picture many times... got me scared at some point...
Had my iso at 1600 if I remember well, using 7D and 50 mm 1.4 lens.
The results are like I expected, crappy.
I need to make the best out of this example and need help with it.
This is the original file reduced to 400 kb.
How would you improve this to make it... presentable...
Thanks in advance!
If you do choose to edit this picture to help me, please explain what you have done..

 

[The_Traveler]

I don't know if this is any improvement at all.

I tried to make the horse more obvious and cut down on the distractions.
First I made the corrugations in the background wall vertical
Then cropped a bit.
Then tiniest bit of lens blur to background wall.
tried to get some contrast variation in the horse.
darkened all the rails in foreground and took out the white part of the sign (and decreased brightness of the green part)

I have no idea whether this looks better or just different.

(certainly the masking would be better on a full-res image.)

 

[The_Traveler]

original

 

[bianni]

.

Here is what I did. enlarged the canvas size so when I straightened the image by rotating, it did not lose any of the image. then I extended the left wall upwards and the lower right, extended down and cropped to solve the problem of the tilt. Adjusted the color to remove the slight green cast. selected the horse and adjusted to show more details.

 

[Peano]

- Set white point
- Darkened/colored white sign at top right
- Opened shadow details on horse (shadows/highlights filter)
- Sharpened (Topaz Detail)
- Cropped
- Added vignette

 

[PhotoDr]

maybe I got a little carried away.....

 

[KmH]

No maybe about it. The horse is purple now.

 

[mgilvey]

I like some of the treatments the others have done with more detail on the horse, slight blur to the background and darkening foreground railing. The big green sign needs to go though. It draws way too much attention. If it were the same as the rest of the wall it would not break up the rhythm of the background.

 

[eshane]

maybe I got a little carried away.....

Well thats a horse of a different color...LOL..

 

[GeorgieGirl]

I think the lighting in these venues is point one to overcome.