The Edward Hanmer Memorial was a top class staying chase run at Haydock each November from 1977. Gold Cup contenders could be relied upon to appear there, but in the 1990s the race gradually went downhill and became a handicap.
It ended in 2007, when it had been shouldered aside by the Betfair Chase – formerly the Lancashire Chase – which had a lot of money thrown at it from its inception in 2005.
Sir Griffin Wyndham Edward Hanmer, the 7th Baronet of Hanmer, had died in 1977, prompting the inauguration of the race. The Hanmers have been prominent Flintshire landowners since 1198. John De Hanmere was knighted by Edward I.
He is not to be confused with Edward Hanmer, amateur jockey and assistant trainer to Michael Stoute, who was killed in a car crash in 1980 aged 24. This was the son of Group Captain Hanmer DFC of Westhorpe Hall Stud near Southwell, whose best horse Peggy Jones won the 1956 Imperial Cup. They were part of another branch of the family, as was the respected BBC racing commentator John Hanmer, who died in 2022.
Bangor has also honoured the Hanmer family from time to time. From 2009-18 they staged a Sir John Hanmer race every November in honour of the recently-deceased 8th Baronet. Covid interrupted that sequence and only a plain Hanmer Maiden Hurdle on 25 May 2021 has marked the name since.