Hunt The Hare

One of Butler's duties as Huntsman was "fixing the ground" for two competitive events organized by the Hounds after their hunting season. One was the Annual Steeplechase, a cross country race of notorious severity. The first definite record of it is in 1834. It is thus the oldest cross country race of the modem era. The second, held each year in May, was the Second Spring Meeting, a series of mock horse races including the Derby Stakes, the Hurdle Race, the Trial Stakes and a program of throwing and jumping events. In other words, it was a track and field meet, again the oldest still in existence, with 1840 the earliest definite date.

In a scrapbook kept by a popular math teacher of Butler's time, and preserved now in the school library, I found some of the "race-cards" for these meets. Again, my discovery had both historical interest and entertainment value. Each runner was supposedly a horse, entered by an" owner" who gave him an appropriate horse-like name. After a while it dawned on me that many of these names were satiric-Adonis, The Wild 'Un, Mad-rig-all, Plate-Licker and Everlasting Pea (probably a disturber of the peace in the dormitories).

https://harrier.net/archive/prequel/rt.html