Interestingly, while Manchester Racecourse existed in various locations in the vicinity of Manchester throughout its lifetime, all of them, while in Greater Manchester, were beyond the boundaries of the City of Manchester. The first record race meeting in the locality took place at Kersal Moor in Salford, to the northwest of Manchester, in 1681, although the meeting was briefly transferred to Barlow Moor, to the southwest of the city centre, between 1697 and 1701.
In 1847, the lease on Kersal Moor expired and was not renewed and the Manchester Racecourse Committee created a new course at nearby Castle Irwell, on land rented, on a 20-year lease, from John Fitzgerald, former Member of Parliament for Seaford, East Sussex. The first meeting at Castle Irwell to place on May 26, 1847 and the course proved hugely popular for the duration of the lease. Even so, John Purcell Fitzgerald, son of the original lessor, refused to renew the lease ‘for just and Christian reasons’ when it expired, leaving the Committee to find yet another new venue.
The site they chose was at New Barns, Weaste, next to Salford Quay, where the racing first took place on New Year’s Eve, 1867 and continued until 1901. The Manchester November Handicap, which, nowadays, is run at Doncaster, minus the ‘Manchester’ tag, was inaugurated in 1876. The land at New Barns was subsequently acquired by the Manchester Ship Canal Company, prompting a return to Castle Irwell, on land which the Committee now owned outright, having purchased it from the executors of John Purcell Fitzgerald, who died in 1879.
The new, purpose-built racecourse staged its first meeting in 1902 and remained popular until after World War II, when attendances began to decline. In 1961, the old, rot-infested Club Stand was demolished as replaced by a fully cantilevered reinforced concrete version but, even so, two years later, property developers made the Committee an offer it couldn’t refuse. Manchester Racecourse staged its final meeting on November 9, 1963.