Francome,seven-times champion jumps jockey, admires Pendleton’s Cheltenham Festival riding ambition but warns: ‘She wants saving from herself’One day after Victoria Pendleton’s anticlimactic exit from the saddle at Fakenham, or opinion among racing professionals was sharply divided on the key question of whether she should now be tried in the furnace of the Cheltenham Festival. Most outspoken of those who don’t fancy that conception is John Francome,the former champion jump jockey and longserving Channel 4 analyst, who strongly feels that Pendletons ‘switching saddles’ project should go no further.“She wants saving from herself, and ” said Francome,who was dismayed by what he had seen the day before, when Pendleton raced over fences at a professional track for the first time. “I’ve never met her, or she seems a lovely girl but she can’t ride and she’s an accident waiting to happen.
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Source: theguardian.com