Georgina Bloomberg: Beyond the Billionaire Legacy

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez

Champion jumper Georgina Bloomberg is making a comeback at 43 — but what she’s competing for has changed entirely.

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER

PHOTOGRAPHY ALBERTO GONZALEZ

STYLING CHARLIE RINCON

HAIR & MAKEUP GINA DIMAGGIO

SHOT ON LOCATION IN WELLINGTON, FL

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez

It begins with a small act of rebellion.

Georgina Bloomberg is over Zoom. Though, to be fair, she did try to connect to the camera for our interview, she’s adamantly opposed to the entire format.

“I’m just morally against having my video camera on,” she says, laughing as she settles into the conversation. “I actually like having a phone call with somebody. I just don’t see why nowadays we have to see each other.”

It’s not shyness. It’s preference.

Bloomberg belongs to a world where visibility is practically part of the job description — where athletes are brands, meetings are screens, and public figures are expected to curate themselves in real time. But she has never been especially interested in performing for the camera when it isn’t necessary.

“I need normal cable on my television,” she says. When she orders food, she wants “an actual paper menu” and to call someone to place the order. “So many places you can’t even do that anymore.”

Technology frustrates her. “I’m just not good with it,” she admits. “It makes me very frustrated.”

It’s a small detail, but it reveals something larger about the way Bloomberg moves through the world. For someone who grew up in the public eye — the daughter of Michael Bloomberg, raised in a household where ambition and achievement were constants — she has always had a surprisingly grounded relationship with visibility. She doesn’t chase it. She doesn’t curate it.

Which may explain why, when she describes her life today, the conversation turns not to podiums or rankings but to a two-year-old who has effectively taken over the household.

“It’s probably the two-year-old,” she says when asked who is actually running things at home. “He really is in charge of everybody.”

Sebastian, born in 2023, is what she calls “a bull in a china shop.” Her oldest son, Jasper, born in 2013, is already riding in the pony ring, beginning to show the same competitive instincts that have defined much of Bloomberg’s own life. He’s been competing with Little Lumi, an American Warmblood mare Bloomberg bred out of her former amateur jumper Lumina, and the partnership has already moved into the junior jumpers. Watching him develop in the ring brings back memories of her own early days — she started riding at age four in New York City, eventually earning grand championships and ‘Best Child Rider’ titles at every major competition on the U.S. East Coast.

And then there is Scarlett, born in June 2025 — Bloomberg’s third child and first daughter, arriving at a moment when the athlete and philanthropist was already navigating a complicated new chapter.

Three children. A comeback season. And a sport that rarely slows down for anyone.

Bloomberg returned to riding this fall after stepping away during her pregnancy, with an ambitious goal: to be back competing at the top level by April, just as the Global Champions League season begins again in Miami Beach. She has been a team owner since the league’s debut in 2016, founding the New York Empire — one of the competition’s most recognizable teams — and she hopes to once again compete as one of its riders this season. The revolutionary format, which unites squads for competition held in incredible destinations across continents during the Longines Global Champions Tour, has become one of the sport’s most exciting innovations, and Bloomberg has been part of it from the beginning.

But if the timeline sounds intense, Bloomberg talks about it with surprising calm. Down in Wellington, where the winter equestrian season unfolds each year, she has intentionally built something looser for her family — a lifestyle that leaves room for dirt bikes, fishing, and children who spend as much time outside as possible.

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez

“I love having kids that are sort of a little bit feral,” she says, laughing. “I kind of prioritize family time and sports over school. I make having happy, creative, free-thinking children a priority over them doing their homework and getting good grades.”

The philosophy is partly a reaction to the environment she grew up in. “My father was much more the one who was like, you need to get good grades and go to college,” she says. Her mother, by contrast, had a different perspective — one shaped by travel, life experience, and curiosity. “She sort of understood the importance of culture and understanding life.”

That influence has stayed with her. Bloomberg did eventually go to college — graduating from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2010 with a BA in Individualized Studies with a concentration in Sports Business and Marketing and Studio Arts. She even studied at Parsons Fashion Design College in 2012. But the education she values most came from a broader curriculum: the barn, the road, the experiences that couldn’t be measured in grades.

Now, as a mother herself, she finds that the things she once measured her life by have shifted. Not disappeared — but shifted.

Returning to elite sport after a third child is not simply a question of desire. It’s a question of time, energy, and trade-offs.

“Finding the time for yourself is the hardest thing,” she says. “And then not feeling guilty about it.”

There are days when she’s exhausted before she even reaches the barn, when the idea of another training session competes with something much simpler — like being at one of her son’s activities. “I don’t want to take time away from my kids when it’s not worth it,” she says. “But I also don’t want to not make another run at this sport that I love when I can.”

That tension — between ambition and presence — is something

she feels acutely. Her biggest fear, she says, isn’t losing. “I think my biggest fear is wasting time. I don’t want to waste time with my children. But I also don’t want to look back and think I could have accomplished something and didn’t try.”

At 43, she knows that competitive sport has its own clock. “I don’t have so much time left to make a comeback in what’s a very physical, time-consuming sport.”

The sport has been part of her identity for nearly four decades. As a young rider, she earned four medals in three appearances at the North American Young Riders’ Championships, including team gold in 2002 and individual gold in 2003. In 2004, she was honored with the Maxine Beard Show Jumping Developing Rider Award, presented by the United States Equestrian Team Foundation — recognition that she was among the country’s most promising talents.

Moving onto the international stage, Bloomberg made her first World Cup Final appearance in 2005 in Las Vegas. It was also the year she made her Nations’ Cup debut, riding in the Samsung Super League Nations’ Cup in La Baule, France, where she was a member of the all-female winning team. Nearly fifteen years later, in 2019, she returned to the World Cup Final in Gothenburg, Sweden, riding Chameur 137 — proof that her competitive fire had never dimmed.

Between those milestones came a steady accumulation of victories and podium finishes. She won the $210,000 Central Park Grand Prix in New York in 2014 and the $127,000 Adequan Grand Prix in Wellington the following year. In 2014, she anchored the U.S. team with double-clear rounds for its win in the Furusiyya Nations Cup in Gijon, Spain. And in her major games debut, Bloomberg helped the U.S. claim the team bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada.

For most of her career, success had clear markers — podiums, rankings, major championships. The Olympics and World Championships have, at various moments, felt within reach.

But the calculation has changed. Because for all the ambition that still drives her, there is one role she never questioned.

“I always knew I wanted to be a mother,” she says. “Even when I was a kid.”

She loves the messiness of it, the chaos, the Saturdays filled with sports games and horse shows. “I get as much pleasure out of being there as doing anything else,” she says. “If this was the only role I’m ever going to have, I’d still feel pretty good about my life and what I accomplished.”

That sense of purpose extends beyond her own family. For Bloomberg, success was never meant to exist in isolation.

“My parents always instilled in us that it’s important to give back,” she says. “And not just be writing a check for something, but to actually be hands-on.”

She remembers being taken to work in soup kitchens as a child — not as a symbolic exercise but as something tangible. “You actually have to see things and help. Just because you can help financially doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there doing something.”

That idea — that privilege carries responsibility — followed her into the upper levels of international sport. Her father’s advice was famously concise: “He always says, ‘Don’t screw it up,'” she says, smiling. “That’s kind of his line.”

It’s not complicated advice. But it’s the kind that echoes. “I feel like I say it to myself a lot. Like in his voice.”

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez

In the ring, the phrase might apply to a single moment — a jump, a distance, a decision made in a split second. But in life, the meaning has widened.

A recent experience made that clear. A close friend’s daughter had been diagnosed with brain cancer. The family was scrambling to get to North Carolina for an appointment with a specialist at Duke. Travel logistics were complicated. Time felt urgent. Bloomberg mentioned the situation to her father.

He flew them.

“They were so insanely grateful,” she says. “And I was like, this is the greatest luxury in life — being able to help the people that you care about and make a difference.”

That philosophy has quietly shaped many of her decisions. In 2006, Bloomberg founded The Rider’s Closet, a program that collects riding apparel donations and redistributes them free of charge to equestrian charities, scholastic riding programs, pony clubs, camps, and individual riders in need. This year, 2026, marks the 20th anniversary of the initiative — now a program of the EQUUS Foundation — which continues to expand access to a sport that can otherwise feel inaccessible. For Bloomberg, the milestone is particularly meaningful. If she loved horses and riding had shaped her life so profoundly, others should have the opportunity to experience it too, regardless of financial barriers.

It’s one of the accomplishments she’s most proud of, and it reflects a broader commitment to making the equestrian world more inclusive. She serves as an EQUUStar for the EQUUS Foundation, a role that allows her to advocate for equine welfare and access on a larger scale.

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez

Animals have always been central to that worldview. “I’ve always loved animals,” she says. “That’s always sort of been my thing.”

At her North Salem, New York farm, sport horses share space with retired horses — including a former New York City carriage horse she rescued — along with rescue dogs, goats, rabbits, miniature horses, mules, and Wilbur, the pig who occasionally steals the spotlight. Her advocacy extends well beyond her own property. Bloomberg serves on the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of the United States and chairs Humane Generation New York, a program operated by HSUS that seeks to cultivate the engagement of young leaders with humane work. She also serves as Vice President of Animal Aid USA. In 2016, the Humane Society recognized her work with its Compassion in Action Award.

Her commitment to service extends into other areas as well. She sits on the boards of the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Bloomberg Family Foundation, the American Museum of Natural History, the Hampton Classic Horse Show, and the Board of Trustees of the United States Equestrian Team. It’s a dizzying array of responsibilities, but Bloomberg approaches each with the same hands-on philosophy her parents instilled in her.

Yet she rarely frames philanthropy as something separate from her life. Instead, it exists as part of the larger example she hopes to set — especially for her children.

Bloomberg has also explored other creative outlets over the years. In 2011, she co-authored The A Circuit, a young adult novel set in the horse show world. Three more books followed in the series, allowing her to share the culture and drama of competitive riding with a broader audience. The project tapped into her multifaceted interests — the same curiosity that led her to study fashion design at Parsons after graduating from NYU.

When asked what she hopes her children might feel one day when they inevitably Google her, her answer is thoughtful and a little playful.

“I hope the first thing that pops up is maybe something about me doing something good in the world,” she says. “Or work that I’ve done with animals.” Then she laughs. “I also kind of want them to think I’m cool.”

She hopes her daughter will see strength and style. She hopes her sons will feel proud when their friends discover the stories behind her career — the World Cup Finals, the Nations Cup victories, the Pan American Games medal, the grand prix wins. But more than anything, she hopes they see a life lived with intention.

It’s a striking perspective from someone whose résumé spans decades of international competition, leadership roles in some of the sport’s most prestigious organizations, and a commitment to animal welfare that has earned national recognition.

But perhaps that’s exactly the point.

Because today, Bloomberg’s definition of success is no longer measured only in podiums or rankings. It’s measured in moments — her son on the course with Little Lumi, the pride in his face as he completes a round. Her daughter watching from the stands, learning what it looks like to pursue something with discipline and joy. An evening at the North Salem farm with all three kids, the rescue dogs and goats and Wilbur the pig moving through the property like it’s their kingdom, everyone exactly where they want to be.

That younger version of herself — the one who needed to prove something, who felt the weight of expectation and ambition pressing down — she was real and necessary. But she’s not the same person anymore. The hunger hasn’t disappeared; it’s just been redirected. Now it’s about building a life where everything she values coexists. Where she can be a world-class athlete and a present mother. Where she can compete at the highest level and still have time to sit on the porch and watch the sunset. Where success means having it all, not by sacrificing one thing for another, but by refusing to choose.

She is still riding. Still training. Still preparing for another Global Champions League season with the New York Empire, set to kick off in Miami Beach in early April. The format has always appealed to her — the team element, the global destinations, the way it brings together riders from different countries under one banner. As both owner and rider, she has a unique perspective on what the Empire represents. She founded the team in 2016 when the league launched, and competing on her own squad at 43 carries a different weight than it did in her twenties. There’s something clarifying about returning to elite sport after stepping away — not because she has to prove anything, but because she still wants to. The question isn’t whether she can compete at the highest level again. It’s whether she can do it on her own terms, with her family intact and her priorities clear. Still leaving open the possibility that she may yet reach the very top level of the sport again.

But the pursuit now exists within a much larger life.

One shaped by the advice she grew up hearing.

Don’t screw it up.

Not the jump.

Not the result.

The life.

A small act of rebellion — repeated every day.

Photo Credit: Alberto Gonzalez