Bruce Springsteen’s Daughter Jessica Is Competing in the 2021 Olympics

Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of rock legend Bruce Springsteen, is competing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The 29-year-old will be part of the U.S. equestrian team that also includes McLain Ward, Kent Farrington and Laura Kraut. Jessica Springsteen will also be joined by her 12-year-old stallion, Don Juan, and this is will be her first Olympics. Springsteen was an alternate at the 2012 Olympics in London and didn’t qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

“I think the chemistry between you and your horse can vary from ride to ride,” she told CNN in 2019. Some horses, you get on immediately and you click right away, and others it can take a little bit longer and be a bit of a struggle. But I think you have to be patient and it has to be a mutual give and take between the horse.”

Springsteen started riding at 4 years old. She won various competitions as a child, and it didn’t change during her adult career. In 2014, Springsteen won the American Gold Cup and then won her first five-star Grand Prix jumping competition in 2016.

“They have been so supportive and are passionate about it too, which is a nice thing to share with them,” Springsteen said to World of Showjumping in 2019, talking about her parents. “There have been so many ups and downs, and they have always pushed me whenever I have been feeling down. They always helped me get through it. I would not be where I am today, if it wasn’t for them.”

Springsteen also talked about when she knew showjumping could be a career, which was her first year in college. “This is kind of the time – in the States at least – to make a decision whether you’re going to try and do both, or stop riding and focus on school,” she said. It was never a question for me to stop riding, I definitely wanted to keep doing it. But I really wanted to go to school and see if there was something else I was as passionate about.”