Britain's FTSE steadies, Draghi pledge helps

* FTSE 100 index flat after recent falls

* Vodafone, Fresnillo (Other OTC: FNLPF - news) among top gainers

* Draghi's pledge of continued support helps

By Atul Prakash

LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index steadied on Wednesday after recent hefty falls, with supportive comments from European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and gains from index heavyweight Vodafone underpinning the market.

Draghi said euro zone monetary policy would remain accommodative for a long period and that the goal was to push up inflation from near zero towards the ECB's target of just below 2 percent.

"Mario Draghi is no doubt moving closer towards a potential shift to implement quantitative easing (QE) with each measure that fails to generate growth of inflation and output," Alpari analyst Joshua Mahony said.

Index heavyweight Vodafone helped the market to stabilise, rising 1.4 percent to feature among the top gainers, with traders citing takeover speculation.

Silver and gold miner Fresnillo topped the blue-chip leader board, up 2.8 percent, after UBS (NYSEArca: FBGX - news) added it to its "most preferred" list. It cited the recent acquisition of Newmont Mining Corp's 44-percent stake in Mexican gold mining joint venture Penmont as a small medium-term positive.

"After recent share price weakness we see attractive long term value in Fresnillo and are attracted to its low cost assets, production growth, high return projects, exploration upside and conservative management," UBS analysts said.

By 1049 GMT on Wednesday the FTSE 100 was flat at 6,674.29 points, having fallen more than 2 percent at the start of the week on profit warnings from Tesco (Xetra: 852647 - news) and Tate & Lyle, and more weak economic data from the euro zone, Britain's biggest trading partner.

That loss left the benchmark looking "oversold" on its 14-day Relative Strength Index, a technical momentum indicator, and traders said they were looking to buy back in to the market.

"We are actually buyers of UK equity at these levels. The FTSE has fallen slightly more than we expected so will be looking to pick up some bargains," Sanlam Securities' head of trading, Mark Ward, said.

Also among the top fallers were stocks trading without their latest dividend, namely Old Mutual (Other OTC: ODMTY - news) and Centrica (LSE: CNA.L - news) . (Additional reporting by Tricia Wright; Editing by Louise Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) )