Hound trailing
dog sport
Hound trailing, or hound racing, is a dog sport that uses specially bred hounds to race along an artificially laid scent trail over a cross country course.
Description
Hound trailing is a race between hounds along an artificially laid scent trail. The sport is a combination of drag hunting, dog racing and steeplechasing, with the hounds taking the place of horses. The hounds follow a man-laid scent, the scent trail being usually laid by dragging a piece of fabric, slightly soaked with a combination of aniseed and paraffin oil, along the course.
Trail hounds over 2 years old race in adult races, whilst those between 1 year old and 2 years old race in puppy races. Adult races are approximately 10 miles (16 km) long and the hounds in the adult races typically take 30 minutes to finish; times outside 25 and 45 minutes are declared void. Puppy races are approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) long. When racing, the hounds' coats are closely shaved to prevent them from overheating during the race.
Unlike in other forms of hunting, humans do not follow the hounds, instead the hounds conduct the course unassisted and spectators can observe parts of the race from vantage points through binoculars. The season is between April and October and the hound that wins the most races in a season is crowned the season's champion.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hound trailing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.