Zaino M came 24th at Hickstead Final 59.82%

Those who follow the blog will know that Zaino can be very spooky in the arena and difficult to ride. Today he arrived at Hickstead and he behaved the best yet ! He was quite to come off of the lorry and extremely relaxed in the warm up he was so good I thought he might be sickening for something. When we walked down to the International arena to do our Medium 73 final I was taken back with the massive sponsor board the speakers all around the arena and the grandstand let alone poor Zaino ! What makes it even more difficult is Zaino having competed in the international arena 2 weeks ago to qualify for this class knew that the grandstand etc etc was not there last time. He did however hold it together throughout the test I was so pleased with him. Of course I am disappointed he was tense and sat behind my leg but you must take the positives and I could feel he wanted to turn around and run in the opposite direction but he didn’t he trusted me today and kept going and I really feel it was a massive breakthrough with him. Especially as we started the test with no music and half way through the test they decided to turn it on just as we were coming into the pirouettes with the speaker facing him he jumped out of his skin and then on the final approach the music let out an almighty cracking distortion sound and he jumped again but recovered and carried on. So all things being equal I was amazed he didn’t loose all his confidence. We have been working on lots of half halts at home to put Zaino back on his hind leg this helps lighten the front end and enables him to become less dependent on the rein contact I really felt a difference in him today. The score is disappointing and to be placed 24 out of 30 however I take into consideration Zaino is only 7 Years Old and the class was the top 4 horses from each County competing at that level. Equally you must sometimes put the score and placing aside because it really is not everything and view the test and the outing and the behaviour overall and for me Zaino got a gold star today !!!