Madonna Hospitalized After Horse Accident

By Stephen M. Silverman

UPDATED 04/19/2009 at 10:00 AM EDT • Originally published 04/18/2009 at 11:00 PM EDT

Madonna suffered "minor injuries and bruises" Saturday while horseback riding in New York's Hamptons, her publicist has announced.

On Saturday evening, Liz Rosenberg said that the entertainer, 50, had already been released from Southampton Hospital after she had been thrown off a horse that had been startled paparazzi.

At 4:24 p.m. Saturday, says Southampton Town police dispatcher Kathleen Vonatzski, Southampton Town police received a phone call that someone fell off a horse at Scuttlehole Road in Bridgehampton. One ambulance was sent to the scene, where it took Madonna to Southampton Hospital, Vonatzski says.

Rosenberg said the photographers had jumped out of the bushes to snap Madonna, who was visiting friends on Eastern Long Island for the weekend. Further medical tests are to be conducted, and doctors will continue to observe Madonna, the rep added.

In 2005, Madonna broke several bones in a horse-riding accident – cracking three ribs and breaking her collarbone and her hand while at Ashcombe, her country estate outside London. The following year, she suffered a hernia and quickly recovered.

• With reporting by DIANE HERBST