Racing tips: Victoria Pendleton rides first winner

Victoria Pendleton's Cheltenham Festival dream faces its make-or-break moment on Monday after the two-time Olympic cycling champion demonstrated her capability in the plate with her first victory as a jockey aboard Pacha Du Polder at Wincanton.

Victoria Pendleton: All the way win on Pacha Du Polder. Picture: Getty

Pendleton needed to show she can hold her own on the racecourse after being unseated from the same horse at Fakenham last month, but she answered any doubters in style with an all-the-way success in the Betfair Switching Saddles Hunters’ Chase.

However, the decision on whether she will line up in the St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase on the final day of the Festival is out of her hands now, with the horse’s trainer Paul Nicholls, jumping guru Yogi Breisner and Lawney and Alan Hill, from whose yard she has been riding out, due to discuss the issue over the weekend before delivering their final verdict on Monday.

The London 2012 gold medallist set out to make a positive impact, taking a prominent role from the off and after surviving a couple of sticky leaps, Pendleton returned to a warm reception from the Wincanton crowd, with the 5-4 favourite running out a 29-length victor.

Pendleton said: “I don’t know if I will make Cheltenham. It is not for me to decide, it is up to my team of experts to sit down and decide and an announcement will be made on Monday.

“If I don’t make it this year, I will certainly ride in point-to-points. Maybe I will ride in it another time, but it is by no means the end.”#

CHELMSFORD

6:05 Multi Quest

6:40 Doeadeer

7:10 Desert Morning

7:40 Pinzolo (nap)

8:10 Frap

8:40 Swiss Cross

9:10 White Dog

LUDLOW

1:55 Diamond Rock

2:30 Zanstra

3:05 Hollywoodien

3:40 Nexius

4:15 Pulling Power

4:50 Monkey Kingdom

5:25 Apterix

SOUTHWELL

1:45 Cultured Knight

2:15 Bomber Etches

2:50 Galvanize

3:25 Weald Of Kent

4:00 Golden Wedding

4:35 Best Tamayuz

TAUNTON

2:05 Lac Sacre

2:40 Space Oddity

3:15 Snowball

3:50 Fight Commander

4:25 Tornado In Milan

5:00 Agincourt Reef

5:35 On The Road

DOUBLE

Desert Morning

7:10 Chelmsford

Pinzolo

7:40 Chelmsford