Victoria Pendleton is driving us to the stables in Dorset. We’re off to see her two horses, Vesper and Sarah. She has two bags with her – one containing her cycling gold medals, the other crammed with carrots and apples. She is convinced she’s going to feed the horses the medals. At times, you sense she wouldn’t mind.
Ask Pendleton for her greatest achievement in sport, and she’ll tell you about an event that occurred after she retired. She’d only been riding horses for a year when she raced at Cheltenham in 2016, finishing two and a half lengths behind the great Nina Carberry in the Foxhunter Chase. She’s never felt so elated, she says. Does that mean more than the gold medals? “In some ways, because it was totally unexpected. You’re dealing with a live animal so you never know what’s going to happen. All I went in with was my courage – my balls and balance, and nothing else.”
