Manchester racecourse remembered 56 years after its last race was run

Next week's November Handicap has a peculiar place on the calendar. A good three weeks on from the official end of the Flat at Ascot and in a period when the touch paper is lit on the jumps, it provides one last hurrah for those weary in limb after a long season.

Its significance as the Flat's encore might have been diminished by the advent of British Champions Day, but the mere mention of the Doncaster race still has the power to evoke painful memories on the opposite side of the Pennines.

For the race used to be called the Manchester November Handicap. The great sporting city had racing intertwined in its fabric for centuries with the November Handicap, Lancashire Plate and Lancashire Oaks among its flagship races.