Madonna blames paparazzi for horse fall

MADONNA blamed paparazzi photographers yesterday after she was thrown from a horse, suffering “minor injuries” and bruises.

The pop star fell in New York’s Hamptons on Saturday, when the horse was startled by paparazzi who “jumped out of the bushes” to photograph her, said her spokesman Liz Rosenberg.

It’s at least the second fall from a horse in four years for Madonna.

Ms Rosenberg said Madonna was treated at a Southampton hospital and released. She would not give more details on the singer’s condition.

The singer of such pop classics as Like A Virgin and Material Girl had been visiting friends in the Hamptons, a playground for the rich and famous on the eastern end of Long Island, Ms Rosenberg said.

According to a local newspaper report, Madonna had been performing jumps and wearing a helmet when the accident occurred.

The entertainer recently returned from Malawi after her bid to adopt a second child from the country, three-year-old Chifundo James, failed.

Her lawyer has lodged an appeal against the judge’s ruling.

Madonna was thrown from a horse in Britain in the summer of 2005, cracking three ribs and breaking her collarbone and a hand in that accident. She got back on a horse a couple of months after the 2005 fall, when she was a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS.

Madonna and the talk show’s host rode their horses outside his Manhattan studio and she said it was the first time since her fall that she had been back in the saddle.

“I have a bit of excitement tainted with fear,” she said then before climbing on.

She also said she had not been back on a horse since that fall “because my record company is not very keen on the idea of me injuring myself”.

The singer begins a European summer tour that kicks off in London on July 4.