Do not ask for whom the bell tolls - "You're riding Madison this week..."

[alobear]

It was a week later than I had expected, but I got my comeuppance at riding this week. Madison – my equestrian nemesis – was the horse assigned to me, and I knew the lesson wasn't going to be easy.

Dominic was back, though, and he again proved himself to be the best riding instructor I've ever had.

There were only two of us in the lesson – me on Madison, and a girl called Mary on Martini, who is much smaller than Madison and kicks, so that made me lead file. We did our usual warm up of walk round, trot round, 20 metre circles. Dominic told me not to be afraid to use my whip, as using it early would let Madison know I had it and was prepared to use it, and so she'd be more likely to work better later in the lesson. I kept her going well enough, and our three-loop serpentine was perfect, but it was hard work all the way and I was really out of breath after 15 minutes.

One of the really good things about Dominic is that he notices when I'm about to expire and tells me to take a break, which I'm generally too stubborn to ask for. As there were only two of us, he had me turn Madison into the middle for a breather, while he worked on the canter transition with Mary.

Dominic has about a hundred tricks up his sleeve for making the horses pay attention and to break them out of their plodding habits. Today, he had Mary trot round, ask for canter in the bottom corner of the school, canter round the corner, then trot again down the long side, repeating the canter at the top corner. This stopped Martini from just cantering in the corner, cantering round the school and stopping, like they usually do, and got her really listening. I could see it worked really well, but I knew it wasn't going to be that easy with Madison.

Madison is very long and rangy and has difficulty motivating herself to shift into canter at the best of times. She needs firm handling, a positive attitude and very clear instructions, the first and last of which I'm not very good at. However, my positive attitude was in place, so I gave it a go.

We trotted round, got to the corner, I sat down in the saddle and asked for canter. Madison extended her trot a bit, but gave absolutely no other sign that she had intention of cantering. I pushed on to the next corner and tried again, being rewarded again with absolutely nothing. Now, I've always found it hard to get Madison into canter, but I've always had more response than today. We went round the school three times with no progress whatsoever, until I could hardly breathe and couldn't carry on any more.

Dominic called a halt to my efforts and got Mary to canter round with Martini absolutely perfectly on the other rein. Then he turned his attention back to me. To start with, we stayed in trot. I pushed Madison on down the long side (by putting both reins in my outside hand and smacking her repeatedly with my whip with my inside hand), then collected her up again on the corners. After a couple of trips round like that, she was wide awake, her head was up and she had no clue what I was trying to do, but she at least wanted to do *something*. Then, I got to a corner, sat down in the saddle and asked for canter, and off she went. She has one of the most uncomfortable canters I've ever come across, so I lost my balance a bit and she dropped back to trot, but it was a start. The transition at the next corner was much better, and I really felt like I'd achieved something.

Dominic put us back into a ride, with me still in the lead, and said we were going to do some acute transitions to keep the horses on their toes. I didn't hold out much hope for Madison with this, as I was really tired by this point, and she'd dropped her head again. When she decides she's had enough, she doesn't pull on the reins like other horses, she just drops all her weight into her head and it feels like you've got a brick wall at the end of the reins. At that point, it's really difficult to do anything with her at all. However, I pulled together the last of my resolve and we set off once more.

We trotted round, turned down the quarter line, made a transition to walk, then back to trot again after six strides, and it wasn't too bad. Then, Dominic took us round one at a time, changing to walk, halt and then straight into trot again – and Madison did it really well. Mary actually had a lot of trouble with Martini at this point, and I felt slightly vindicated that I'd managed to do something better than her for once!

Then Dominic told me to repeat the canter exercise. I got Madison in a strong trot, pushed her down the long side, felt that she was paying attention at long last, asked for canter at the corner, and she did a perfect transition. This time, I kept her in canter all the way round the school and it felt brilliant. I wanted to throw my hands in the air and shout, "Yatta!" but I figured that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

And thus ended the Madison endurance test. As usual with her, I felt like I was about to die when I got off, but I also felt as if I'd really achieved something, because she'd been awful at the start of the lesson, but we'd worked on the problem and done something right by the end. I certainly wouldn't want to ride her every week, but she'd really good for me every now and then.

Plus, I go the answer to my question – I have got any fitter, I just haven't ridden Madison for a while!

Although, having said that, I think my recovery rate after the lesson was better than it had been on previous occasions of riding her, and the lesson itself was a lot harder, so maybe I have got marginally fitter after all.

That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it!