A HORSE which melted the hearts of Lancashire Evening Telegraph readers after being orphaned at two days old has won a national competition.

Little Zara was named by readers after she lost her mum Minnie to Laminitis -- a disease that affects the hoof -- three years ago.

Readers heard how the fire service were called to lift her mum up so she could feed.

But after being nursed to health she has trotted to victory in the Best Feet category at her first competitive outing -- beating 300 other shire horses.

Zara was raised by her adoptive human family, the Woofs, who spent six months sleeping outside her stable in a caravan waking every two hours to feed her.

Her adopted mum Jean said: "A lot of people said we should have just let her die because she wouldn't have amounted to anything. Well she has really shown them!" And after many sleepless nights and lots of tender loving care the young horse showed her true class at the Peterborough Shire Horse competition over the weekend.

She won the award after her adopted dad farrier Philip Woof, of Great Harwood, made her shoes and shod her -- a task that took seven hours. Philip, 44, who runs a mobile farrier business from their home in Whalley Road, also won places for three horses he shod for other people.

Jean, 42, of Whalley Road, said it was an extremely difficult time when Zara was born and after her mum Earnshaw Minnie died three years ago.

"A lot of people said we shouldn't have even bothered because as her mum had died and she wouldn't have had access to her milk. They said it was best to let her die.

"We couldn't do that, it's just not in our nature. So we fed her every two hours, staying outside her stable in a caravan. People said we were mad to even try.

"We gave her Aintree Foaling Milk, a powdered milk as close to a mother's as possible and she has come on leaps and bounds.

"I suppose it just shows all those doubters and proves them wrong. After all that has happened to her, it's such a happy ending.

"Her mum was really ill with a foot disease called Laminitis when she was pregnant with Zara but she held on until she foaled.

"We ran a competition in the Evening Telegraph for readers to name her. We got hundreds of entrants, but after careful deliberation we chose what we thought best suited her -- Marieth Princess Zara.

"I suppose now she really is a true princess."