Victoria Pendleton is taking on the ultimate challenge, swapping her trusty pedals for a pair of stirrups to become a jockey, with the aim of racing in the 2016 Cheltenham Festival.

Video: 31 Questions with Victoria Pendleton

Since retiring from cycling in 2012, Victoria Pendleton has since gone on to qualify as a fitness trainer, bring out her own bicycle range and strut her stuff on Strictly Come Dancing. Now, looking for a new fresh goal to set herself, she’s returned back to competitive sports.

Although she’s been riding bikes since the age of three, this challenge has already seen her ride a horse for the very first time. Learning all the tricks of the trade from scratch to experience life as a jockey, along the way she will receive guidance from the biggest names in horse racing, including Champion trainer Paul Nicholls.

“I’m not doing this to win. There’s very little hope of that. I’m doing it to learn something completely new. Just to be able to step up to the start line and not be out of place: that will be something. I’ll be very proud of myself.”

She will need to earn a jockey’s licence and have six months of one on one tutoring learning how to ride and, race before the point to point season begins in November.

We hope she finds her feet and can’t wait to see how she gets on with the exciting challenge!