Victoria Pendleton: Olympic champion to make jockey debut

Double Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton is to make her debut as an amateur jockey in a flat race at Newbury on Thursday (17.55 BST).

Pendleton, 34, who retired from cycling after the 2012 Olympics, will ride Mighty Mambo in the one-mile, five-furlong George Frewer Charity Race.
She said: "I've been training hard and working with a world-class team of experts and I am excited at the prospect of riding in a race."
Pendleton will face 10 other riders.
She started training to ride as a jockey in March with the long-term goal of competing in the Foxhunters Chase at Cheltenham Festival in 2016.
Having passed the required riding and fitness assessment at the British Racing School in Newmarket, she will make her racecourse debut as part of the Key4Life Charity Race Evening at Newbury on the eight-year old gelding Mighty Mambo, trained by Lawney Hill in Oxfordshire.

Victoria Pendleton also won a silver medal at the London Olympics in the sprint

Hill said: "Victoria has been doing very well, riding out regularly, galloping and schooling the horses.
"We've been very happy with her progress to this date and she's putting everything into it. Obviously she's a true professional. After all the grind of the training you do to become an Olympic champion, I think she's finding this refreshingly different."
Pendleton won Olympic gold in the sprint at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the Keirin at the 2012 Games in London.