Details of the 2004 Waterloo Cup

"What is the attraction of coursing?" the author of The Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (1852) is forced to admit that coursing has been found dull:

"We may be asked," he says, "what pleasure there can be for people marshalled in line, at certain distances from each other, monotonously to walk or ride at a foot pace over a ploughed field or across a wide health on a bleak November day, the eye anxiously directed hither and thither to catch the clod or the sidelong furrow that half conceals a poor hare, or to espy the tuft she has parted to make her form in?"

But even so stupid a pastime as this has its charms for many people, when to the zest of seeing a timid animal's life at stake there is added the more modern excitement of betting on the prowess of the dogs.

Of the cruelty of coursing, as practised in the chief contests, from the Waterloo Cup down, there can be no question. "What more aggravated form of torture is to be found," says Lady Florence Dixie, "than coursing with greyhounds—the awful terror of the hare depicting itself in the laid-back ears, convulsive doubles, and wild starting eyes which seem almost to burst from their sockets in the agony of tension which that piteous struggle for life entails?"

For hare coursing supporters, the Waterloo Cup, held on Lord Leverhulme's Altcar estate near Southport, is the most prestigious event in the coursing calendar. According the Countryside Alliance website tales of previous Waterloo Cups still provoke "misty eyes" among supporters of the event but for decent people the event is totally offensive.

Every year trained RSPCA representatives attend the Waterloo Cup undercover to record number of races, known as slips and the number of kills. They also log the time taken from the moment a hare is caught by the dogs to the time the animal is killed, by having its neck wrung. If the representatives are in any doubt, no record is made.

SUMMARY:
During the four events from 1998 to 2002 (the event was cancelled in 2001 due to foot-and-mouth):
* There were 373 slips, resulting in 76 kills (an average of one kill every five slips).
* In many cases, death did not occur instantly, or within a few seconds. The length of time between catch and dispatch was commonly more than 30 seconds. The longest time recorded was 125 seconds.
Below is a summary of the figures over the three days of the last four events, with details of other incidents noted by observers:

1998:
83 slips
21 kills
Dispatch times in excess of 30 seconds.
Day one:
A number of hares took at least 30 seconds to be dispatched.
One hare was carried in a dog's mouth for 30 seconds before it was dropped and ran off, with unknown injuries.
Day two:
One dog collapsed on the way to the slip. Another dog was given oxygen on leaving the coursing ground.

1999:
82 slips
16 kills
Dispatch times up to 125 seconds
Day one:
Of 11 kills, nine were on the course, and two were in the "soughs", out of sight of the ground.
The quickest time from catch to dispatch was recorded as nine seconds.
The longest dispatch took 125 seconds. Dispatch times of 95 seconds and 85 seconds were also recorded.
One hare was caught and carried in dog's mouth for 32 seconds, before being dropped and running off, with unknown injuries. One dog was carried from the ground.
Day two:
The longest dispatch time was recorded as 39 seconds. One dog carried from the ground.
Day three:
No hares killed on this day.

2000:
105 slips
21 kills
Dispatch times up to 59 seconds
Day one:
Shortest dispatch time was 12 seconds, the longest being 56 seconds (this hare was caught and released several times).
Day two:
Two dogs left the ground lame.
Day three:
Two kills took place out of sight from the observers.
One dog left the ground severely lame.

2002:
103 slips
18 kills
Dispatch recorded of up to 57 seconds
Day one:
In addition to the total of 11 kills, four hares were bitten, but ran away with unknown injuries. In another case a hare took 25 seconds to die after the first "dispatcher" could not complete the kill and called for assistance.
Two dogs collapsed on the course. One dog was spotted lame in the paddock. Two fell into a ditch while chasing a hare.
Day two:
One hare's escape route was blocked by the crowd and the hare came back on to the ground. It was killed.
One dog was lame in the paddock.

2003:
25 killed

2004:
13 killed
 

Humanitarian League Protest 1914
Waterloo Cup David Midwood
Waterloo Cup 1997
Waterloo Cup 2000 - Burns Visit
Waterloo Cup 2000
Waterloo Cup 2002
Waterloo Cup 2003
Waterloo Cup 2003 Part 1
Waterloo Cup 2003 Part 2
Waterloo Cup 2004