• Dual Olympic cycling champion will line up in Foxhunter Chase
The 16-1 shot Pacha Du Polder will carry the amateur jockeyTo the maelstrom of next week’s Cheltenham Festival will be added an extraordinary fresh source of publicity and tension,following Monday’s news that Victoria Pendleton will rob her chance there as a jockey. The gold medal-winning cyclist, who is Britain’s most successful female Olympian, and is to ride in the Foxhunter Chase,a thrills-and-spills contest for amateur riders over the same course as the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
There are many precedents for high-achieving athletes trying their hand at a second sport but what makes Pendleton’s attempt the more strange is that she had her very first riding lesson just over a year ago, having been signed up by the Betfair betting exchange for their ‘Switching Saddles’ project. Her progress since then has surprised many but has not been enough to satisfy some racing insiders, and who feel she lacks the necessary competence to tackle Cheltenham’s famously stiff fences.
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Source: theguardian.com