Description of Formal Coursing
Modern hare coursing is practiced using a number of sighthounds: mainly greyhounds but also Borzois, Salukis, Whippets, and Deerhounds that are registered with a governing body such as the National Coursing Club or Kennel Club in Great Britain, the Irish Coursing Club or the National Open Field Coursing Association (NOFCA) in the US. Events are conducted through local coursing clubs which are regulated by their governing body. The objective of coursing is to test and judge the athletic ability of the dogs rather than to kill the hare.
Such hare coursing has a number of variations in how it is undertaken. Open coursing takes place in the open field, and closed coursing (or park or Irish style) takes place in an enclosure with an escape route. Open coursing is either run as walked-up coursing, where a line of people walk through the countryside to flush out a hare, or as driven coursing (such as the Waterloo Cup), where hares are driven by beaters towards the coursing field. In each case in the UK with Greyhound coursing, when a suitable hare appears, a person known as a slipper uses a slip with two collars to release two dogs at the same time, in pursuit of the hare which is given a head start (known as fair law), usually between 80–100 yards (70–90 metres). Elsewhere the sighthound is slipped by the handler.
The chased hare will in the UK then run at around 40–45 km/h (24–26 mph) and the course will last around 35–40 seconds over a third of a mile (0.5 km). The Greyhounds which pursue the hare will, being faster, start to catch up with it. Since the Greyhounds are much bigger than the hare, and much less agile, they find it hard to follow the hare's sharp turns, which it makes as the Greyhounds threaten to reach it. This agility gives the hare an important and often crucial advantage as it seeks, usually successfully, to escape. Under National Coursing Club rules, the dogs are awarded points on how many times they can turn the hare, and how closely they force the hare's progress. The contest between the Greyhounds is judged in the UK usually from horseback, and the winning Greyhound will proceed to the next round of a knock-out tournament. The 2003 UK coursing season ran from 1 October to 28 February.
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