Madonna breaks bones in horse-riding accident

LONDON — Singer Madonna suffered several broken bones on Tuesday when she fell off a horse while riding at her English country estate on her 47th birthday, her spokeswoman said.

The superstar was treated and released from a hospital after sustaining three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand, according to Liz Rosenberg, her spokeswoman based in New York.

“The star was celebrating her 47th birthday with her husband, film director Guy Ritchie and her two children, Lourdes and Rocco,” another spokeswoman, Barbara Charone, said in a statement released in London.

The singer was riding with her assistant when she had the accident. Her husband rushed her to hospital.

“She was riding a new horse, not her regular horse,”  Liz Rosenberg said.

Madonna, whose latest album “Confessions on a Dancefloor” is due for release in November, has been an avid fan of English country life since marrying Ritchie, director of the hit London gangster movie “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

Among the country pursuits the Material Girl superstar enjoys is clay pigeon shooting.

Bought by the celebrity couple three years ago, Ashcombe House is a six-bedroom, 18th century mansion near the picturesque village of Tollard Royal.

Tucked away in a deep chalk valley on the borders of rural Wiltshire and Dorset, it is the former home of the British society photographer Cecil Beaton and its pheasant and partridge shoot is considered one of the best in England.

Last year, Madonna won the right to exclude hikers from much of the nine-million-pound ($16 million) estate.

The singer and her husband argued that unrestricted public access would destroy their right to a private family life.