Her Royal Highness Infanta Elena, Duchess of Lugo was taken to hospital yesterday after falling from her horse during an afternoon practice on the grounds of Zarzuela Palace.
After the incident, she was treated on scene by a team of doctors for an injury to her wrist. The doctors then decided it was best for her to be taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance for more observation. Fortunately, her injury from the fall is not thought to be severe. ABC News reported that Elena will be treated by orthopedic doctor Ángel Villamor, who has previously treated her father, King Juan Carlos. The former king suffered a hip injury last June that required an operation. He has also treated her paternal aunt, Infanta Margarita, Duchess of Soria and Hernani.
The Infanta is a keen horseback rider, and this is not the first time she has suffered a fall by riding. During a practice in 1986, Elena was thrown from her horse, where she suffered a crack in a vertebra and sprained her wrist. In 2004, Her Royal Highness was injured after her horse stumbled during a competition in Santander, Spain. On that occasion, she was treated by the medical personnel at the Campa de la Magdalena tournament.
She is known to practice at both Zarzuela Palace and Club de Campo de Madrid. The love of horses runs in her family as her daughter, Victoria Federica de Marichalar also competes in equestrian events.
Elena, 52, is the eldest child of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain and an older sister to Spain’s current monarch, King Felipe VI. She was married to Jaime de Marichalar y Sáenz de Tejada with whom she has two children: Felipe and Victoria. They divorced in December 2009. She is third in the line of succession to the Spanish throne after her two nieces, Leonor, Princess of Asturias, 10, and Infanta Sofía, 9.
Her father abdicated in favour of her younger brother, Felipe on 19 June 2014.
This one Spanish Royal that I really like. She’s had a sad time in her marriage and seems to have come through that time well. But I see a look of sadness on her face often.
It is not sadness, is mental melancholy. She feels she has been side tracked by her family despite of living “by the book”. Both her siblings and her father got away with murder ( in the case of her father, literally ).