Simone Biles Embraces a New Sport at Home in Texas—After Hinting at Gymnastics Return for 2028 Olympics

Gymnast Simone Biles has all but conquered the sport that shot her to global fame—and it seems she’s decided the time is right to try her hand at a new skill: horseback riding.

Biles, 28, who has seven Olympic gold medals to her name, revealed on her Instagram account that she is taking regular riding lessons near her home in Spring, TX, having just returned from another whirlwind vacation in Australia.

The sporting super star shared an image from the local stables near her sprawling custom-built megamansion, which appears to have finally been completed after more than two years of work.

“Another day, another horseback riding lesson,” she wrote alongside a snap of a stable door, before sharing a second image of herself wearing riding boots and jodhpurs.

However, while Biles has been lauded for her natural athletic abilities, it appears that her new-found love of horseback riding is somewhat at odds with her yearslong gymnastics training.

Sharing a grainy black-and-white video of herself atop a horse, the gymnast joked that she’s struggle to retrain herself to actively flex her feet rather than pointing them.

“Being told to flex my feet feels criminal,” she joked in her caption.

It is not the first time that Biles has hinted at her love of horses, having previously shared images and video of the animals grazing in a field while out on a dog walk with her beloved French bulldog.

However, the gymnast’s progress with her new hobby may well be impeded when the NFL season starts in earnest in a matter of days—when her husband, Jonathan Owens, will kick off another year with the Chicago Bears.

Biles has previously revealed that she and Owens, 30, have found a home in the Illinois city where it’s thought they will base themselves for much of the season, taking them away from their newly built lakefront mansion in Texas.

The gymnast first revealed on Instagram at the start of the summer that she and Owens had picked up a property in Chicago when she announced that they were busy shopping for a car to use at the abode.

However, she has not yet shared whether they have purchased a home, or if they are renting while they await to see what becomes of Owens’ contract with the team.

Owens is preparing to start his second season with the Bears, after signing a two-year contract in 2024. He started his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, before moving to the Houston Texans, where he was playing when he and Biles began dating.

“Looking at cars today for our Chicago home,” she wrote over an image of the inside of a Porsche showroom.

Biles then shared a more recent sneak peek in and around their Chicago pad on Instagram, when she posted a photo of a stunning swimming pool that overlooks a bright green stretch of grass, with a white barn seen in the distance.

“We’re back,” she captioned the image, while adding a location tag for Chicago.

While Owens has been taking part in preseason games with his team, Biles has been on the sidelines showing her full support for her spouse—more often than not sporting custom merch in his honor.

Though Biles appears to have plenty to occupy her time at the moment, she recently hinted that she has not yet shut the door on her gymnastics career all together, although she hesitated to commit fully to competing in the 2028 Olympics.

Speaking to Olympics.com, the athlete—who has competed in three Olympic Games since 2016—noted that, whenever she chooses to end her run on the mat, she wants to do so on her own terms, rather than being forced to retire at a time that doesn’t feel right to her.

“I want it to be my choice when I’m done,” she said. “I don’t want the doctors to be like, ‘Hey, you can’t move on.'”

Biles added that, while she hasn’t decided one way or another whether the 2024 Paris Games were her last, she would be happy to end her career with that performance.

“I’m grateful that if this (Paris) was the end, that I got to choose my ending,” she explained.

When asked whether she would continue returning to the sport in the hopes of securing a spot on Team USA for 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Biles conceded that she has left that door open.

“There’s more to it… we’ll definitely see,” she shared.

Luckily, if Biles does choose to restart her training, she doesn’t have to go far to do it; her parents, Nellie and Ronald, own the World Champions Centre gym in Spring, where their daughter prepared for all three Games that she took part in.

The facility is located just a few miles from both of Biles’ homes—the first of which she purchased in 2020, four years after claiming her first Olympic gold.

Meanwhile, she and Owens broke ground on their custom marital mansion in early 2023 and finally appear to have completed construction on the stunning lakefront abode.