Waterloo sunset

Now illegal under the Hunting Act, hare coursing has a rich history, from the Romans up to the Blair government, says Sir Johnny Scott

- Sir Johnny Scott

Sometime during the first century AD, continental brown hares were introduced to Britain as being stronger and more suitable for coursing than the indigenous mountain hare. Every wealthy Roman Briton, particularly landowners with their extensive estates, aspired to owning several leashes of vertigo — greyhounds — and coursing had developed into social occasions, with owners traveling considerable distances to match their dogs against those of others. When a hare was sighted and given a decent head start, the vertigo was unleashed simultaneously and the one closest to the hare before it escaped was judged the winner.

Such was the popularity of match coursing that, early in the second century, the Roman historian Arrian recorded the rules: “Whoever courses with greyhounds should neither slip them near the hare, nor more than a brace at a time… The true sportsman does not take out his dogs to destroy the hares, but for the sake of the course and the contest between the dogs and the hares, and is glad if the hares escape.”

Sport of pharaohs

The ethos of match coursing, where the object was not to kill the hare but a competition between two of the fastest breed of dog and the fastest land mammal, was already many centuries old. The Romans adopted coursing from the Gauls, but greyhounds and coursing date back to the pharaohs.

There are frequent historical references to greyhounds and hare coursing over the following millennia, both in art and literature, but the next time the rules were written in detail was during the 16th century.