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things to. I have so much respect for some of the great riders in this sport, but I never wanted to be that rider who had the Olympic gold medal but doesn't have a family. I was very lucky that the timing was good. I [missed] indoors, and that's it. It's not as if I'd made a team and was going to have to miss a major competition. But obviously at the same time, it's a sacrifice taking time away from the sport. It's very difficult to take time off in this sport and stay at a high level. But as much as I've always wanted to be a mother, I have a lot of respect for women who make the decision to not have children. Not everybody wants the same things in life. Just because you're a woman doesn't necessarily mean you want to be a mother. How did you decide when to stop riding? During the first trimester I actually felt worse than I do now. It was harder, physically, for me to show in May than it was to show at the Hamptons. I had always said, "If I find out I'm pregnant, I'm going to stop riding." And then once it happened, I was like, "You know what, I feel good, and I'd like to keep going." But obviously, it's not just a matter of how I feel; it's a matter of being smart. I tried to make good choices. I feel very safe on Juvina; she can jump anything. She's not a horse that, say, doesn't jump the water or has a bad spook. Obviously anything can happen, but I feel very safe on her. I just took it week by week. I knew for sure that the Hampton Classic would be my last show, no matter what. That's a show that's close to my heart, so I wanted to do it. I still felt fit and healthy enough to do it, but I knew there was no going past that. Was it tough to commit to taking the time off? I had taken a year off to recover from back surgery [in the summer of 2011]. In a way that made me not want to take the time off because I had just gotten back into it. It took me more than a year to get comfortable jumping the grand prix again and build up a string of horses. I have some nice young horses and two nice grand prix horses now, so in that way, it wasn't great timing. Before I took the time off for my surgery, I was scared to do it. I was terrified; we get so into showing every week that you forget that there's a whole world out there. You think that if you stop, you can't come back. But for me, it actually ended up being a great thing. I enjoyed the time off and was able to do lots of other things. To be able to step back from the sport and have that break made me—mentally and physically—so much stronger. I really knew this is what I wanted to do, and I really wanted to come back. Compared to taking the year off for my surgery, this is so much less terrifying. Now I know that I can take some time off, and I know how to come back from it. I've proven to myself that if I can recover from that, I can come back from this. It's not going to be a big deal. The mainstream media definitely focused on your pregnancy this year, and you got some criticism from the public. Did that bother you? I know it was controversial, and I knew I'd get criticism for showing at the Hampton Classic. At that horse show in particular, we get so much attention from spectators who don't know our sport well, so I knew I'd get some comments. But that wasn't going to stop me from showing. I was going to listen to my body and be careful and smart about it and continue with as much as I felt comfortable doing. "I tried to make good choices," Georgina Bloomberg explained her third-placed finish in the $250,000 FTI Consulting Grand Prix at the Hampton Classic. "I feel very safe on Juvina." How do you handle the mainstream media attention? Most of it I try to avoid. Especially when my father was first running for office, I read everything. That was a huge mistake, and I had to learn to ignore articles that I knew would be negative. As much as you say to yourself, "Don't let it bother you or get to you," it does, if you read it. So I tried to get away from it. You toughen up, and your skin gets thicker, and you remember that no matter who you are, there are going to be positive and negative things written about you. I do try to remind myself that I'm never going to please everyone. I have to make my own decisions and do what I think is right. One thing I respect so much in my father is that he doesn't let criticism get to him. He always does what he thinks is right and what he believes in. It doesn't C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M W INTER 2013 35

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