Prendergast's 'star' Vastonea wins again

The Kevin Prendergast trained and yard ‘pet’ Vastonea claimed his sixth career win at Leopardstown today, landing the Tote Handicap under Gary Halpin.

The gelding’s grey colouring is becoming whiter with each year but today the eight year old again showed a willing attitude when storming home in the closing stages to edge past Breenainthemycra close home. Breenainthemycra, the 3/1 favourite, looked sure to win with 100 yards to race and had matched at 1.01 in-running.

Following the race Prendergast, who enjoyed 2,000 Guineas success with Awtaad this year, stated “we’ll give him (Vastonea) a break for the winter now. He’s a right old horse and pays his way and has won two Topaz Miles (at Galway) and was third in another.

“He has won over €240,000 now and he’s a star in our place and everyone’s favourite.”

He added “we’ve had a good season and while I didn’t have that many horses, they all performed well.

“Aneen is a very nice filly and hopefully if everything goes right she’ll make a nice three-year-old. She’ll probably start off in one of the Guineas trials and hopefully progress from there.”

By Tom Weekes, quotes from Gary Carson