Victoria Pendleton to ride at Ripon on Monday August 31

Victoria Pendleton takes another step towards her quest to ride at the Cheltenham Festival when she rides at Ripon on Monday.

Despite being a total novice in the saddle, the dual gold medal-winning cyclist announced in March she was training to become a jockey, with a long-term aim of competing in the Foxhunter Chase at next year's Cheltenham Festival.

After four months of intensive training and riding out five times a week for Oxfordshire-based trainer Lawney Hill, Pendleton made her racecourse debut in a charity event at Newbury in early July, finishing down the field aboard Mighty Mambo.

Having recently been awarded her 'Category A' licence, she heads to North Yorkshire on Bank Holiday Monday to partner the Hill-trained Royal Etiquette in the 15-runner Betfair Novice Flat Amateur Riders' Handicap.

Hill said: "We're all looking forward to it and I know Victoria is really keen to get going again as it's quite a while since she rode at Newbury on July 2.

"I've never been to Ripon before personally and neither has the horse. I hope they don't get too much rain.

"It's not going to be an easy race for Victoria as there are quite a lot of runners and she is going to have to try and weave her way through. She's more used to doing that on a bicycle than on horseback!"

Hill is not even thinking about victory, concentrating solely on bringing Pendleton through the experience safe and sound at this early stage of her training.

"It is another step up the ladder and the main thing is to try and keep her safe and give her another good experience. We all want to win, of course, but we don't want to run before we can walk and this horse is similar to Mighty Mambo in that he's fairly exposed, but he should look after Victoria - he doesn't go tearing off," said Hill.

"Victoria has ridden him quite a lot at home, so she knows him well and fingers crossed everything goes well."