Flat Racing
Manchester traditionally staged the final fixture of the British flat racing season, with the highlight being the Manchester November Handicap. When the course closed in 1963 the fixture was transferred to Doncaster Racecourse. The last race staged was won by the jockey Lester Piggott.
Manchester was also the venue for the Lancashire Oaks from that race's inception in 1939 until 1963. It also staged a Classic race - the wartime substitute St. Leger in 1941.
Manchester staged British racing's first evening fixture on 13 July 1951; and a stand built in 1961 was the site of the first private boxes at a British sports venue.
Read more about this topic: Manchester Racecourse
Famous quotes containing the words flat and/or racing:
“We say justly that the weak person is flat, for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life.... But the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side and is equally strong every way.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)