William Haggas strives to be crowned leading trainer at York
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Tue 5 Dec 2023
William Haggas hopes to achieve a long-held ambition this weekend by being crowned leading trainer of the season at York.
While Haggas is fully entrenched in Newmarket life, he was born in Skipton, North Yorkshire.
He came close to claiming the title in 2015 but was nailed in the dying embers of the season by David O'Meara.
This year another leading Yorkshire-based trainer, Tim Easterby, looks his main rival, but Haggas is going all out to secure the prize.
He currently leads Easterby by three winners going into the final two days.
"I always wanted to, one day, be leading trainer at York one season," said Haggas.
"We nearly did it a couple of years ago and got done on the last day when David O'Meara had four winners in the last two meetings.
"This year it looks as though, with a bit of luck, it's only Tim that's the danger.
"In the past, we've not really had a plethora of runners, we've just been very lucky.
"But this time, we're going to run a few, primarily because we'd obviously like to try and win. I think we'll have three or four each day. But it's quite late in the day."
Haggas has three runners on Friday including Frankel colt The Grand Visir in the £100,000 Unibet Handicap, having finished fifth in the Melrose at the Ebor meeting.
"The Grand Visir ran a very good race in the Melrose," said Haggas.
"He hasn't run since but he's in good form and we've had this race in mind for a while."
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