In fact, McEnroe wasn’t even supposed to wear the Air Trainer 1 on a tennis court! Nike’s Peter Moore gave McEnroe a pair with the directive to wear them for everything except tennis. Much like the Air Trainer 1, McEnroe didn’t conform to established etiquette, and his brash attitude allowed him to become a cultural icon. John McEnroe was and still is the most famous ‘wild child’ in the tennis world.
This question brings us back to a fundamental issue Haggas also highlighted in his interview: that much of the detail of the sport’s financing remains shrouded in secrecy.John McEnroe’s Air Trainer 1 PE Featured Custom Tennis Soles Since it would be an unprecedented move to cut 300 fixtures, there is no worthwhile evidence this would indeed be the case.Īnd which 300 fixtures and – by extension – which courses should we cut? How can we be sure that we are axing the right ones? “If the same amount of money is available …” seems to assume that about 1,200 meetings with (slightly) more competitive field sizes will generate the same turnover and profit for the betting industry as approximately 1,500 at present. The “if” in Haggas’s interview also deserves close inspection, because as big ifs go, it’s a doozy. When a track goes, it goes, and there will be no way to resurrect it 10 years down the line if everyone suddenly agrees it was all a terrible mistake. It would almost certainly lead to the closure of several tracks and since the high-volume all-weather courses will not be among them the much-cherished spread and variety of British turf courses could be permanently diminished. One horse per race, in other words, and the latest figure is disturbingly close to the eight runners required for three places each-way.īut 300 fixtures is just over 20% of the 1,482 meetings on the 2022 schedule, which would be an immense and unprecedented cut to the calendar. In the peak-season months from May to August, the average number of runners in turf handicaps on the Flat has dropped from 9.35 in 2019 – the last pre-pandemic season – to 8.37 in 2022. The steady decline in field sizes is undoubtedly something that needs to be addressed. We have an issue at the moment with too much racing, there’s no doubt, and it’s only the trainers that are saying this and the trainers are the ones who benefit from too much racing.” “If the same amount of money is available, then would go up. “We as a body, the National Trainers’ Federation, were very much in favour of cancelling 300 races,” he told Sky Sports Racing last week, “and I would cancel 300 fixtures and make the pool of races smaller. In Haggas’s view, however, this would not have been nearly enough.
The longtime stalwart of the National Trainers’ Federation has also found time to emerge as a key campaigner for a big reduction in British racing’s fixture list, in an attempt to address falling field sizes and improve competitiveness.Ī modest plan to cut 300 races from next year’s schedule fell through this year after opposition from Arena Racing Company (ARC), which operates 16 tracks and would have been expected to take most of the cut.
It promises to be a memorable afternoon for Yorkshire-born Haggas, who will be hoping to win a fifth Group One in a single season for the first time in his 35-year career.