Zano's Succes

Well, this has been a month of big ups and even bigger downs. But, I reckon we should start with the ups... Zano went to his second ever show as a competitor! It was a summer open show at one of the riding clubs I’ve joined, and the weather couldn’t have been better. Zano had been bathed and groomed until he sparkled, and I changed his browband from the plain leather to one with a bit of bling! He looked stunning.

We entered into two classes to begin with – the in hand foreign breeds (because he’s Spanish) and the ridden foreign breeds. The first class was a bit of a nightmare – Zano was hugely excited by all the other horses around him, and objected strongly to being followed at close quarters by a miniature pony!! His trot is so awesome I couldn’t keep up with him, and his head was in my way so I couldn’t even see where I was trying to run! Anyway, that kept my boyfriend, Paul, and best friend Fran, watching from the ringside, well entertained! In the end, it wasn’t that bad after all, and we managed a 5th! (Oh, hang on, there were only 5 of us in the ring... still, no-one needs to know that, do they??!)

In the ridden class I wasn’t sure what to expect. He’s never worked in a big open space on grass, trotting and cantering with lots of other horses. But he was awesome, and he really showed off. The judge described him as ‘drop dead gorgeous’, which I thought just about matched what he felt to ride, and how he looked and felt that day. The individual class wasn’t so hot though, and he got a bit attached to the horses around him (he didn’t want to leave them to begin with!). That meant we dropped down the order from 2nd to 4th, but I was still over the moon with our 4th placed rosette.

The proud pair

Just before we left, we thought we might as well enter for one last class – Handsomest Gelding. That was Zano’s idea, by the way, not mine. He must have got it right though, because we left with another rosette, 4th place out of a huge class. All in all, it was a fabulous day out and he behaved himself really, really well. I didn’t over ride him at the show, getting into the saddle just to warm up and for the ridden class. I made sure he had plenty of rest (and some grass time) between the classes, too, with his saddle off. But I did notice that just before the last class he started to shift his back legs quite a bit, and it was something I was a bit worried about. But that was okay. He was booked into the vets for the following week. He’d been slightly on-off lame for a few weeks. He’d been the same the year before, since I’d first started riding him soon after I bought him. He’d seemed better over the winter, when he’d had his shoes off, but it was back again. The lameness was hardly noticeable, and my boyfriend, Paul, couldn’t see what I was worried about, but I thought a trip to the vets would put my mind at rest. But instead, what was to happen at the vets was to have the complete opposite effect...