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A Life Changing Event for a Leesburg Vet
A Life Changing Event for a Leesburg Vet
By Jan Mercker
Gustavo Zanotto clearly remembers the day his first show horse died from colic. The devastating event made a lifelong impression on the handsome Brazilian veterinarian, who joined the team at the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in January.
“I remember that day,” he said. “I said, ‘one day, I’m going to be a vet.’ I wanted to be a surgeon so no other horse is going to die. That has been my whole life.”
Since then, Zanotto’s path has shifted from critical care to equine sports medicine. He now cares for some of the region’s top sports horses at one of the country’s most prestigious horse hospitals–and is embracing life in Loudoun.
Zanotto was born in Rio de Janeiro and moved to the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba as a child. Curitiba, the capital of the Brazilian state of Parana, borders the famed Argentine Pampas and shares a thriving horse culture with its neighbor to the south. Curitiba is also a hub for the cattle trade, and Zanotto’s love of horses was born on his family’s cattle farm.
“The southern part of Brazil is almost a blend between Brazil and Argentina and Uruguay…It’s a beautiful place,” Zanotto said. “There are a few places in the world that are very unique because of the weather for breeding horses, and southern Brazil is one of them.”
In some ways, Loudoun reminds him of home.
“It’s very similar. You have these pockets where the culture around the horse is very similar,” he said. “People travel around the world riding horses. They do the circuit here, they do Europe. It’s very similar.”
Zanotto grew up riding horses and was the first in his family to compete. Zanotto was a show jumper with a little dressage in the mix.
Zanotto found a riding barn in Curitiba and started show jumping. His family had limited resources so he started competing with a horse from the cattle farm he had trained as a show jumper. Losing his first show horse to colic was a catalyzing event and set him on his path to working with elite sports horses. He initially was interested in surgery but eventually found his calling in the field of equine sports medicine.
Zanotto completed his veterinary degree at the Federal University of Parana, followed by an internship and a master’s degree in veterinary surgery from the University of Sao Paulo. He moved to the US in 2013 for an internship in equine musculoskeletal radiology at Colorado State University and stayed on to complete an equine sports medicine and rehabilitation residency in 2019.
“I started to get more excited about the idea that we could work on orthopedics and could involve the imaging field,” Zanotto said.
In 2020, he joined the faculty at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, as a clinical assistant professor of equine sports medicine and imaging, moving into the position of service chief for the department in 2022.
When an opportunity to join the EMC team arose, Zanotto jumped at the chance. He had spent time in Loudoun while training with the noted hunt country veterinarian Kent Allen, owner of Virginia Equine Imaging in Middleburg, in 2017. Zanotto was impressed with Allen’s approach and the caliber of horses he treated.
“It was a different view, and I loved the way he was practicing,” Zanotto said.
EMC’s state-of-the-art facilities and the ability to work with the MidAtlantic’s best athletic horses were a big draw.
“The Equine Medical Center is a well-known place within our community,” he said. “It was something I always wanted to achieve–working on this level of horses with great professionals around me. Being part of this team, you’re getting to the top, and that’s definitely part of the decision in coming here.”
Zanotto’s day-to-day at EMC includes lameness exams, creating treatment plans and follow-up at the impressive Leesburg facility.
“It requires a lot of maintenance to be able to perform at the highest levels,” he said. “It’s a way for us to help someone that’s specialized–understanding the needs of a sport horse that can be different from pasture pets and others. The expectations of treatments and outcomes are different.”
Zanotto is an avid outdoorsman who said learning to snowboard was one of his favorite non-work-related aspects of his time in Colorado. He arrived in Loudoun in the middle of winter and hit the ground running at work. As he gets his bearings, he’s looking forward to exploring the region and taking advantage of spring and summer in his new home.
