US triumph sees Zara put an awful year behind her

Last year proved to be an annus horribilis for Zara tindall. First, she failed to be selected for the Olympic equestrian team owing to concerns about the fitness of her horse High Kingdom.

she then suffered a miscarriage, losing her second child.

Now the Queen’s granddaughter has bounced back with a truly remarkable performance, having claimed £31,000 in prize money for finishing third on High Kingdom at one of the most challenging international competitions in the equestrian calendar — the Kentucky Rolex three-day event, in Lexington, U.s.

as a former world champion — a title she claimed in 2006, when she was also voted BBC sports Personality of the Year — Zara has known great success.

But her performance at Lexington, where she was the only British competitor, is her best placing since taking silver as a member of the

British Eventing Team at the London Olympics in 2012.

Yet it was only on Christmas Eve that Zara, who had been four months into her pregnancy, issued a joint statement with her husband, Mike Tindall, to say she had miscarried.

She soon returned to a punishing training schedule, involving an early morning work- out on an exercise bike, a full day working with High Kingdom, and then ‘extra exercise’, either cycling or swimming.

Zara, 35, clearly shares the robustness of her mother, Princess Anne, who famously insisted that Zara and her brother Peter should not bear royal titles, in a bid to allow them to live more ‘normal’ lives.

Husband Mike was unable to witness his wife’s triumph, remaining with their daughter Mia, three, at their cottage on Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate.

But there was no lack of appreciation from excitable fans, one of whom accidentally fell into the Lexington lake just after Zara and High Kingdom had cleared the final fence.