Madonna back in the saddle

Music

13:30 08 March 2006

Madonna has got back in the saddle just seven months after her horrifying fall from a horse.

The 47-year-old singer - who suffered horrific injuries when she was thrown from a horse on her birthday last August - recently went riding in California.

She put her bay gelding through its paces on a ranch in Simi Valley, near Los Angeles, where a lot of the old Hollywood Western films were filmed.

Onlookers claim the 'Hung Up' singer looked supremely confident on the animal and didn't show any signs of nervousness following her fall.

The mother-of-two snapped her collar bone, ribs and hand in the accident on her Wiltshire estate - and admitted it was agonizing.

She said at the time: "I tried to stand up and my whole skeleton collapsed on me and I fainted.

"I cried a lot, mostly from pain. When you can't set bones it's painful."

After her riding comeback, Madonna gave the animal a grateful pat after she had dismounted.

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