Madonna attends US horse show

CHECK OUT THE COOL RANGE OF HERITAGE GLOVES, OFFICIAL GLOVES OF THE US EQUESTRIAN FEDERATION!


Madonna is attending the Wellington Winter Equestrian Festival in the USA.

Madonna made her first appearance at the Winter Equestrian Festival on Sunday.

She watched professional show-jumpers for nearly two hours from her third-row $35,000-per-season table at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center’s VIP club.

The Material Girl is watching the show jumping in good company.  Rocker Bruce Springsteen recently bought two homes in Wellington so that he can watch his daughter ride in competition. Actress Glenn Close, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CNN staffer Lou Dobbs also have followed their children’s exploits there.

The Material Girl managed to go practically incognito behind thick dark glasses and under an orange baseball hat with a Che Guevara-like silhouette of her on the front.

The few fans who recognized the singer of Papa Don’t Preach were shooed away by show ground owner Mark Bellissimo’s red-shirted goons.

Madonna is training her own horses at Wellington under the eye of personal riding coach, eventing rider Daisy Trayford whom she's flying in specially from the UK.

Madonna imported one of her horses, all-rounder Boris, out to America six months ago and last week he was joined by the second one, young eventer Sportsfield Silver Lining.

27-year-old Trayford has been Madonna’s riding coach for two years, the connection starting when Madonna bought two horses from Exmoor Eventing, the business Daisy (née Binding) runs with her husband Richard.

 "She had the horses on trial and asked if I would go down and help get her going on them," said Daisy. "The first year it was really busy. Last year was more difficult because she was on tour, but I was there most weekends, fitting it around my eventing."

“She’s a dream pupil,” Trayford told Horse and Hound. “She’s very driven, listens to what you say and just wants to do it and improve. You can always get somewhere with someone like that.  When I started teaching her, she hadn’t jumped at all and now she can jump a course of 1.05m. Jumping and hacking are her two favourite things."

Daisy is not the first eventer to teach Madonna, as in January 2006 Horse & Hound reported that Madonna was learning from William Fox-Pitt and particularly enjoyed riding Moon Man, who was put down in December.

Madonna has persisted with her riding since suffereing three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand when she fell off her mount on her English countryside property in 2005.