Astelia gains deserved success under Ewing The Peter Fahey-trained Astelia (13/8) was a deserved winner of the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares Maiden Hurdle for jockey Sam Ewing. Having her 20th start, the daughter of Sea The Stars had finished second nine times, and her day to cross the line in front finally came with a nice performance. She was happy to sit behind the leader Mastertown Miss through and momentarily it looked like Katie Cant Count could spoil the day for Astelia, but she kept to her task well to land a first success. Speaking after the race, owner Syndicate-head Mikey Donoghue, from Roscommon, reported: "I'm Mickey D, the bookie basher, and while my day job is doing tour buses, I give racing tips on my YouTube channel every day. I have 11,000 subscribers and have been doing it for four years. "I have eight Americans on tour at the moment and they're here today, and there's a man in the syndicate from Kenmare here, who wasn't at the races since the 1960s! "I've been involved in a few horses through the years and this is my first in a syndicate. We bought her last year around the time I was trying to get 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. I got 100 people in at €100 with her, most of the owners have never been involved in a horse and some are from the UK." "I was confident enough today, tipped her and put her into a trixie." (Quotes from Tom Weekes
