But New Yorkers have lost the habit of going to the fights and it will be a real achievement for all

But New Yorkers have lost the habit of going to the fights, and it will be a real achievement for all concerned if Friday’s show is a commercial as well as artistic success.Hamed, as ever, has talked a good fight and the New York press coverage has been generally sympathetic and encouraging. There is a 50-foot billboard of him at the Lincoln Tunnel, strategically sited to catch the eyes of the commuting thousands, and his image is also displayed in Times Square. The arena was less than half full that night too, and if one of the best marketed boxers in history could not draw the crowds back to the Garden, it is asking a lot of an unknown Englishman to succeed where he failed.HBO, the TV company who signed Hamed to a $12m (pounds 7.3m) deal, have done their best to project him and allocated an advertising budget of pounds 1.75m. New York, and specifically the Garden, was once viewed as the game’s headquarters, but then the Las Vegas casinos realised the punter-pulling potential of the sport and, within a couple of years, had taken it over.The city slipped so far down the promotional pecking order that my first assignment here in a near 30-year career including over 50 American trips was not until 1991, when I watched Terry Norris pound Sugar Ray Leonard into yet another retirement.

It must be a blow to an ego of his dimensions to encounter apathy rather than adulation, but it may be some consolation to reflect that better-known men than him have failed to fill the Garden.Big-time boxing is now so rare an event in New York that the market – which once sustained regular weekly shows in the old Garden, the third to bear the name and the predecessor of the current arena – has moved on and only ice hockey is now a guaranteed seller here. Barring an unexpectedly walk-up at the box office on Friday the 20,000- seat arena is likely to be less than half full.That will be a blow for Warren, who reportedly paid pounds 750,000 to hire the stadium for his US promotional debut. He is a seasoned player in a high risk game and will understand the necessity to speculate to accumulate, but Hamed is not used to being snubbed. His mentor, Brendan Ingle, did his best to put a brave face on it when he flew home at the weekend to work with his middleweight Ryan Rhodes who lost in Sheffield to Otis Grant for the vacant WBO middleweight title.Ingle insisted that Hamed had made a big impression in New York and would draw well against Kelley, a popular local fighter with a fine record and a crowd-pleaser’s reputation, but the proof is in the advance ticket sales. There is nothing unusual in that, of course: New York cabbies are so notoriously ill-acquainted with their own city that some of them may not even have heard of the Garden itself.
But when the same level of ignorance is encountered amongst barmen, for whom enclyclopaedic sporting knowledge is a professional essential, it is clear that tomorrow’s World Boxing Organisation featherweight title defence is a hard sell for the self-styled Prince and his promoter, Frank Warren.Hamed is a big name in Britain, but has yet to scratch the surface of American sporting consciousness. “That way I can talk to many people,” he added, and with that he was gone.. Despite massive promotion, Naseem Hamed is encountering apathy rather than adulation as he prepares for his world title defence tomorrow Harry Mullan reports from New York.

The cabbie who drove me to my hotel a block behind Madison Square Garden had never heard of Naseem Hamed, who makes his American debut at Madison Square Garden tomorrow night against Kevin Kelley. The star stayed just long enough to answer one question about the UK: “I think the right time to talk about that will be at the Dubai World Cup,” Sheikh Mohammed said, looking forward to the richest race in the world in March. I’m sure he was attempting to qualify for the world championship – he’s keen.”The race had started at 6am and was still going 12 hours later. The game may have moved on, as they say, but there would be no more fitting stage as the race-organiser, Faisal Seddiq, explained.”Our forefathers and their’s before them used to stage marathon endurance tests, especially during weddings of Bedouins and royals, or any important people who could afford to give something to the others.”As far as the good sheikh was concerned, Seddiq said: “He always takes part, and he’s one of the good, disciplined riders.

There was no prize money for Hassan, just the honour of becoming the UAE’s representive in next year’s world championship, which the Emirates are hoping to host. Taking water on board as the sun shone after lunch seemed to tax his rider too, as he missed the catch every time anyone threw him a bottle.In the end the driver was virtually hurling them at him, before offering his advice to the eventual winner who was, understandably, a little put out by the running commentary.The offender could content himself with chucking a four-wheel drive around the desert and at times it was hard to work out just what the real event was, with more than 50 vehicles performing cartwheels in the sand behind the leading horses.Sheikh Mohammed was happy to sit just off the pace among the 40 or so competitors, eventually finishing joint sixth before plonking himself down on the floor to tuck into a meal with family and guests in clear view of anyone who cared to ogle.The winner, Hassan bin Ali, had arrived to a great fanfare and an embrace from Sheikh Mohammed’s oldest son, Sheikh Rashid. Horses’ pulse rates are regularly checked by vets to see if their riders are overworking them, thereby incurring penalties, while the first 20 horses home at the end are dope tested. The use of whips and spurs is strictly forbidden.The nags themselves are some former racers, some thoroughbreds, some pure Arab and most of them owned by Sheikh somebody bin somebody Mak somebody. There was British interest in the shape of Wendy McCawley on Time Traveller, whom she also trains for Sheikh Mohammed.McCawley finished well down a field that was dominated by Hassan bin Ali on Mr Junabee, owned, by way of variation, by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid, another of the Maktoum brothers who have so transformed racing in Britain.Mr Junabee’s only serious problem appeared to be an inability to slow down, thus risking the chance of a heart-rate penalty and possible elimination.

The objective of endurance racing is not speed, but to test the combined efforts of man and beast as they attempt to tackle a 120km course through rough terrain, without putting undue pressure on the beast.In this race there were four stages, with a 30 minute break between each. Yesterday he appeared suddenly, somewhere in the Arabian Desert, about 40 miles outside Dubai.It was half past four in the morning as Sheikh Mohammed arrived to weigh in for the race, billed as the Desert Giants and part of the International Equestrianism Federation’s World Endurance Championship.Three of his sons were there as well, and a host of other movers and sheikhs. Although he has threatened to withdraw from racing in Britain, Sheikh Mohammed’s perseverance could not be faulted in an endurance race in Dubai yesterday Adam Szreter saw him in action. Despite his heritage, it was still strange to see the slight figure of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, kitted out in full endurance-racing regalia and taking time off from the altogether more serious pursuit of putting the frighteners on the British horse-racing business.
Last week the biggest spender in the sport in Britain was busy making unveiled threats to withdraw his horses from the country unless there are radical funding changes. Tony McCoy continued his phenomenal run of success when riding the fastest 150 winners in a season on Deano’s Beeno at Bangor yesterday. Like 92 other McCoy winners this season,

Deano’s Beeno is trained by Martin Pipe. “Having the Pipe horses to ride makes my job a lot easier,” McCoy said.
The Royal SunAlliance Chase hope Tullymurry Toff is out for the season after cracking a bone in his kneeWilliam Hill are to sponsor the National Hunt Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.The BHB has agreed that RaceTech, the provider of racing’s integrity services, can be sold to the Racecourse Association for pounds 1, rather than to PhD Information Ltd, which runs the Gambit race-ratings service on the Internet, for pounds 50,000..