A rider who was born with bilateral talipes, or club foot, said that “all the pain and tears” have been worth it for what she has achieved.
Charlotte Pezzotta, who told H&H she was “never supposed to be able to walk”, is now eventing on a Connemara she produced, and wanted to share her experiences in hopes it may help other riders who are struggling.
“I don’t think this sort of thing is spoken about enough,” she said. “You can do things, if you’re born with conditions or have injuries. I’ve had people saying nasty things, which make you feel like maybe it’s not ok. But those people aren’t worth it. After a lot of thinking, I’ve decided I want to tell the world and help other people overcome their problems.”
Babies are born with club foot if the Achilles tendon is too short, which means the foot turns down or inwards. In Charlotte’s case, both feet were affected, which meant she had to wear “cast after cast after cast” for years and has had four operations.
After years of recovery and rehab, Charlotte can now walk normally, and ride.
“Throughout my childhood, I couldn’t do PE properly because of the pain and I spent a lot of time drawing,” she said. “But all I wanted to know about was horses.”
When Charlotte was 12, after her last surgery, her mother bought her four-year-old Connemara My Glen Star, with whom Charlotte has twice competed in the British Connemara Pony Society Eventing Championships, coming seventh the first time, and in the national hunter trial championships.
“I will always be recovering, I’ll never be 100%,” she said, adding that her feet will get sore after a long day at work as a groom, and producing youngsters. “My club foot does still affect my riding as I will never have a full range of flexibility through my ankles and this affects me putting my heels down far enough.
“But a couple of months ago, we were redoing the house and going through the attic and my mum found a duffle bag and said ‘Open it’. It was full of my old splints and casts, models of my feet from when I was a baby, and I just fell apart.
“I’d spent so many years ignoring it and pretending it wasn’t there but I thought ‘This did happen’, and that I was done ignoring it. I want to tell people and help people, and say: ‘You can do it’. I was struggling with flying changes the other day as I can’t get my foot in the right place but my mum set the exercise up differently and I did it 10 times in a row so it’s all about adjusting things to a way people can do it.
“ I could not be prouder of Glen and myself, knowing all the pain and tears over the years have been worth it. Our next goal is to qualify and hopefully compete at Badminton grassroots, and continue to produce my clients’ young horses to a high standard.”
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