Toothless 20-year-old still ‘loving a party’ at the Winter Dressage Championships

Martha Terry's avatar
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Published In Features
Zante and Ellie Roberts at Winter Dressage Championships
Zante may be 20-years-old and without any front teeth, but he's still enjoying competing.
(Image credit: Kevin Sparrow Photography)

If he were a human, Zante would be consigned to an armchair with his pipe, slippers and false teeth. However, the 20-year-old Flemmingh gelding still “enjoys a party” and looked to be flourishing in the Nupafeed Advanced Medium Freestyle Silver Championship at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships 2024.

Eighteen months ago, Zante had all his incisors removed due to Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis, a painful dental disorder in which the teeth roots start to dissolve. 

Martha Terry
Martha Terry
Features editor

Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.