. . . You seriously think an auto-everything camera is necessary to get good shots?
Ridiculous.
I bet there's people here who could get an equally good shot of that horse in action with a 4x5 plate camera.
It's got to do with pre-focusing, sufficient shutter speed and sufficient DOF from aperture. Any camera in manual mode can do that. In fact: anyone who wouldn't do that with something as predictable as kids in a merry-go-round (how low-skilled can you go) is rather thick...
You're assuming (and the poster is suggesting) that those shots were snapped instantly, on the spot, unpremeditated. etc. I'm not buying it. The sports shot was prefocused or the photographer was just a button-jockey.