international news _ JONTY SKRUFFF _ 25th August, 2005

Madonna Urged To Get Back On Her High Horse

The British press urged Madonna to adopt a stiff upper lip this week after she fell off a horse at her English country estate, with the Standard's Miranda Sawyer leading the charge with an uncharacteristically mean opinion piece.

"Broken ribs, collar bone, injured hand . . . poor old Madonna- who would have thought that 'old' and Madonna would sit so nicely together," she chuckled, "For no matter how lithe and nimble she is for her age, that age is now 47. And once you're past 40, if you're dropped you don't bounce."

More sympathetic was Daily Telegraph letter writer Celia Hadden who told the paper her father once knocked himself unconscious falling off a horse at the tender age of 73, though insisted on being taken home rather than hospital as he regained consciousness as he was being dragged off Exmoor.

'Sir, Madonna, who has broken her collarbone while riding, should get straight back on the horse," she urged. "My father, Darby Haddon, broke his while hunting with the Heythrop. He continued hunting, jumping the Cotswold stone walls, with his arms in a sling, holding his reins with the left hand," she added.

Madonna's expected three month recovery period could cause problems for the release of her upcoming dance album Confessions, tracks of which her producer Jacques Lu Cont (Stuart Price) has recently been road-testing at clubs including Ibiza's Space.

"Whenever I was DJ'ing, I'd take dub or instrumental versions out with me," Lu Cont told Rolling Stone this week. "I had my camera with me, and the next day I'd tell Madonna, 'This is what a thousand people in Liverpool looked like last night dancing to our song'," he explained.(Jonty Skrufff)