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  • September 2010
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Ystrad Dewi Briton (Madonna’s Horse)

Our horse for the day on Sunday, 20 April 2008

Celebrity Sunday!

Madonna’s grey gelding Tom, real name Ystrad Dewi Briton, was a 47th birthday present from the singer’s husband, Guy Ritchie. He was one of half-a-dozen horses that Ritchie brought to their 1,200-acre Wiltshire she shares with him and her children Rocco and Lourdes for a birthday treat.

Ritchie gathered together a large number of horses with the idea that Madonna could choose the one she liked best - and at first she got it wrong.
The singer leapt straight onto the back of a polo pony, which promptly took off at speed and unseated her. She suffered a broken collarbone, broken hand and three broken ribs.

She said at the time, “It was a wake-up call to appreciate my life, to be more grateful for what I have. It reaffirms my continued aspirations to learn and do as much as I can while on this earth.”

Later she decided that Tom was the horse for her and she has since taken riding lessons with British Olympic silver medallist William Fox-Pitt and has built a jumping course at her Wiltshire estate. Horses, horse-riding and riding accidents also featured prominently in Madonna’s extravagant show at Wembley Arena in August.

It’s all a different world to the small farm where Tom took his first unsteady steps in 1998 as the latest in a long and noble lineage of Wales’s native horse breed.
His mother, Ystrad Dewi Victoria, has won many top prizes at the Royal Welsh Show, and is still with Lloyd Jones - and in foal again - at his home near Llanddewi Brefi.
Now a gelding, Tom is a grandson of the renowned Ebbw Victor, four times Royal Welsh male champion between 1983 and 1997, who won the coveted Prince of Wales cup before retiring in 1998.



 

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