LEE WESTWOOD is eyeing up another monster pay day after revealing his 66-1 hero Yorkhill is set to target the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Race to Dubai champion Westwood, 47, scooped a whopping £28,000 when his rank outsider won at Newcastle at the end of last month.
Westwood co-owns Yorkhill, who has won twice at the festival but fallen totally out of form in recent years, with good mate Dave Armstrong.
Top golfer Westy, who pocketed £1.5million last week when claiming the European Tour’s order of merit, has the golden touch with horses.
He admitted as much in a chat with commentator Derek Thompson on his Facebook page.
And the Ryder Cup legend let slip that Yorkhill’s trainer Sandy Thomson is lining up a tilt at the Cheltenham showpiece.
Westwood said: “I’ve been very lucky with horses. Myself and Dave Armstrong have got Yorkhill.
“We’ll try and race him over Christmas some time. The trainer is talking about entering him in the Gold Cup.
“He’s won round Cheltenham before and Ruby Walsh always said he was a potential Gold Cup horse.
“He likes going that way round so why not?”
The prize pot for the Gold Cup – one of the biggest in British and Irish racing – is a massive £625,000.
Yorkhill is likely to be big odds again should he be thrown in to the March race.
His career looked all but over prior to his stunning Newcastle success on November 28.
Yorkhill had been pulled up on his two previous runs and fell in the race before that, a 3m 2f contest at Newbury in November 2019.
His last win had come at Galway in August 2019 and he looked in the doldrums until Thomson totally turned his form around.
Yorkhill won the JLT Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham in 2017, a year on from his victory over Yanworth in the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle.
Westwood is likely to have a punt on his born again superstar should he run at the home of jumps.
He memorably won £48,000 on day two of the festival in 2019 and the year prior scooped £20,000 from his shrewd bets.
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