A steeplechase is an obstacle race in athletics which derives its name from the steeplechase in horse racing. The foremost version of the event is the 3000 metres steeplechase. The 2000 metres steeplechase is the next most common distance. In youth athletics, a distance of 1000 metres is occasionally used for steeplechase races.
History Steeple chasing was originally a horse riding event that grew out of hunting with dogs. A pack of dogs would be set on the trail of the prey while riders on horses chased after the dogs, going over fields, leaping fences, jumping over gates and ditches, bounding over brooks and streams, racing through woods, until finally the prey was caught. By the start of the nineteenth century hunting for foxes, hares and stags like this was quite common all over Britain, and even the King kept both a pack of staghounds and a pack of harriers for hunting hares.Oxford Journal, Saturday 6 March 1790 p. 3Oxford Journal, Saturday 15 October 1791 p. 2
Occasionally, the riders would go out and find that there was no prey, that they could not start a fox or hare to chase, when, so as not to waste the day, they would engage in a sport known as steeple hunting, or hunt the steeple. This "consists of the horsemen riding helter skelter towards the first church steeple that catches their eye, and he that is in first is the best man."Oxford Journal, Saturday 16 April 1785 p. 4Chester Courant, Tuesday 19 April 1785 p. 1Kentish Gazette, Tuesday 22 November 1791 p. 2 Since riding like this was exhilarating and exciting, people started going out for the specific purpose of racing like this. These races are thought to have started in Ireland and the sport, now being called, "steeple race", arrived in England in November 1796 when three men raced from Barkby Holt to Billesdon Coplow, Leicestershire, and back again, for a stake of one hundred guineas. The winner, Mr. C. Meynell, covered the nine miles in twenty-six minutes.Northampton Mercury, Saturday 3 Dec 1796 p. 3Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, Tuesday 6 Dec 1796 p. 4Kentish Gazette, Tue 6 Dec 1796 p. 3; Chester Chronicle, Friday 9 Dec 1796 p. 3 The term "steeple chase" first appears in the British Newspaper Archive in this context on 20 March 1802, "steeple-chase" first appears on 12 July 1811, and "steeplechase" on 30 December 1819.Chester Courant, Tuesday 23 March 1802 p. 1Drakard's Stamford News, Friday 12 Jul 1811 p. 3Saunders's News-Letter, Thursday 30 December 1819 p. 4
The earliest mention of a foot race being called a steeplechase took place in the back garden of a pub in Edinburgh in May 1827. This is the first public meeting of the Edinburgh Six Foot Club, at Hunter's Tryst, where they had three sports, quoits, rifle shooting, and this single foot race they called a steeplechase. What the race actually consisted of is not known, other than that it was called a steeplechase, the finish was by a hand-held flag, and the winner was awarded a silver medal.Caledonian Mercury, Thursday 31 May 1827 p. 3 The following year they had a very similar meeting where the steeplechase is described as being "about a mile", but the winner took a mere "three minutes and a half", suggesting that these details are not correct.Caledonian Mercury, Monday 5 May 1828 p. 3Edinburgh Evening Courant, Sat 10 May 1828 p. 4 The following year, 1829, the winner took six minutes.Dublin Evening Post, Tuesday 26 May 1829 p. 4 This race differed from modern steeplechase races due to the absence of a water obstacle of some kind. The earliest known foot race that was both called a steeplechase and had a water obstacle took place on 24 July 1829, on the banks of the river Leithen, about twenty-five miles from Edinburgh, at the St Ronan's Border Games. The winner was George Laidlaw, a shepherd from Crosslee in Ettrick Forest, and a cousin to the author James Hogg.
a red flag being placed upon a hill at a distance, the candidates were started in the middle of the wood, and every man chose his own road to the point, and his road back again through waters and corn fields, over dykes and ditches, while the rain which came on suddenly was pouring on them abundantly.Edinburgh Evening Courant, Thursday 30 July 1829 p. 4
The steeplechase would remain a rough cross country race for a number of years until it was established that races could start or finish on, and eventually be held entirely on, a running track. At the same time cross country running was beginning to develop from paper chasing, or Hare and Hounds as it was also being called, and it began to emerge that there was a difference between cross country and steeplechase. In cross country running all the runners followed the same route, but in steeplechase runners were given a start and end point and found their own way, as long as they adhered to local rules about how much of the route could be covered on roads or paths, and that they were not allowed to leap a gate or stile, but had to go over the hedge, ditch or fence.
The first school to have a steeplechase was Rugby, in April 1834. The pupils organised it themselves, starting from a field one mile outside of town, they ran to the top of Barby Hill, around four miles away. On the way they encountered a "tremendous" hedge with a brook on the other side of it, and several boys lost a shoe in the mud.Bell's Life, Sun 20 Apr 1834 p. 3Coventry Herald, Friday 25 April 1834 p. 3
Later the same month, Liddesdale Gymnastic Society held their first meeting on the haugh at Mangerton Holm, near Newcastleton, consisting mostly of jumping and throwing events, 22-lb shot put, and standing triple jump. Andrew Gray, a baker's apprentice from Hawick, set a world best in the long jump of 18 ft 3 in (5.56 m).Richard Hymans (2015). "World Record Progressions". International Amateur Athletics Federation. They also had three foot races, 500 yards, 1 mile, and a steeplechase of unknown length won by James Waugh from Toftholm in Liddesdale. This was the first time the steeplechase had been included in a meet alongside other events that were exclusively from the sport of athletics.Liverpool Standard, Friday 25 April 1834 p. 4Wolverhampton Chronicle, Wed 30 Apr 1834 p. 2 Although the route was unknown, the following year it was described as "a bold ravine with the Liddel flowing in the dale, the distance being to and from the high ground on either side. There was a fair proportion of stone walls, and hedges, as well as the river, and rising and falling ground, and all was cleared in fine style".Carlisle Patriot, Sat 2 May 1835 p. 3Caledonian Mercury, Thursday 7 May 1835 p. 3
By this time, other Highland and Border Games were holding races they called a steeplechase. The Highland Club of Scotland held one on Inchkeith Island in July 1828, the East-Lothian Tyneside Games had one in Amisfield Park, Haddington, in October 1833, and the Tillside Border Games held one at Etal in Northumberland in April 1836, but there was no water jump involved in these races.Edinburgh Evening Courant, Monday 14 July 1828 p. 3The Scotsman, Wednesday 9 Oct 1833 p. 4Newcastle Courant, Saturday 16 April 1836 p. 3 Water jumps were more common in steeplechases south of the border. In April 1834, at Trenley Park, near Fordwich, about three miles east of Canterbury, eleven men from the villages of Sturry, Fordwich, and Westbere ran a steeplechase that required them to navigate nine ditches, two streams around eighteen feet wide, and then they crossed the River Stour, which at that point was over forty feet wide and five feet deep. This last was, as the newspaper explained, "truly formidable to such of the sportsmen as were unable to swim." Henry Cart of Fordwich was the winner, covering the one mile route in a little over eight minutes.Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, Tuesday 29 April 1834 p. 3
In August that year, on the other side of Canterbury, near Whitehall Dyke, there was a steeplechase on a more lavish scale, with fireworks, and prizes, and a band, and a signal gun for the start, and tents serving refreshments to the three thousand spectators who turned up to watch the runners swim the River Stour, four feet deep at that point. This time fourteen runners negotiated twenty leaps, over "rather more than a mile", and the winner was Henry Friar (Harbledown) in 8:15, earning a prize of three pounds. At the finish each runner was given a glass of brandy, and in the evening they all dined together in a local inn.South Eastern Gazette, Tuesday 26 August 1834 p. 3
In May 1837 Princess Victoria celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and towns and villages up and down the country had festivities and sports on the occasion. At Mottisfont in Hampshire, midway between Salisbury and Winchester, their sports included three steeplechases for different age groups, the first age-graded steeplechases. The open race was for all comers, a second race was for runners aged between sixteen and twenty-one, and a third race was for runners under sixteen years of age. No results are available, but, "two rivers were crossed, and several hedges and ditches were cleared in good style."Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 29 May 1837 p. 4
In 1838 following the coronation of Queen Victoria public sport formed a part of the celebrations in many parts of the country. There were at least a dozen steeplechases held in places as far apart as Innerleithen and Roslin in Scotland, Edgbaston near Birmingham, Midsomer Norton in Somerset and Mottisfont in Hampshire.Caledonian Mercury, Thursday 9 August 1838 p. 3Caledonian Mercury, Mon 13 August 1838 p. 3Bell's Life, Sunday 29 Apr 1838 p. 4Monmouthshire Merlin, Sat 14 Jul 1838 p. 1Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Monday 11 June 1838 p. 4 Cardiff and Cowbridge both held steeplechases on 28 June, coronation day itself, sharing the honour of the first steeplechase in Wales.Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, Saturday 23 June 1838 p. 3Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian, Saturday 7 July 1838 p. 3
By 1840 the steeplechase had become sufficiently popular that in just one month there were ten races in different parts of the country, with six of these held over the three-day Easter weekend, the traditional date for the end of the season for the horse racing steeple chase.
At Birkenhead on the 1st April, seventeen men ran one mile and a half "over a sporting country" in front of a small crowd.Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser, Friday 3 April 1840 p. 3Liverpool Albion, Monday 6 April 1840 p. 3 On the fifteenth, nine men contested a steeplechase of three-quarters of a mile at Kensington, to the east of the city of Liverpool.Manchester Courier, Saturday 18 April 1840 p. 5Liverpool Albion, Monday 20 April 1840 p. 3 Then on Good Friday, at the Wooler Gymnastic Games in Northumberland, Anthony Dag cleared 10 feet (3.05 m) in the standing long jump and 40 ft (12.19 m) in the triple jump, then three shepherds running barefoot contested a steeplechase of one mile for a new hat, "over bog, moor, dyke, and whin, directly up the face of a hill".Berwick Advertiser, Saturday 18 April 1840 p. 4 The same day, at Blandy's Farm, on the Bath Road near Worcester, seventeen men dressed as horse racing jockeys ran a "steeple match" of about a mile with eight jumps in six minutes.Worcester Journal, Thursday 23 Apr 1840 p. 3 The following day, ten men similarly attired "crossed many ditches, a beck and a rivulet", in front of "vast numbers" of spectators at Driffield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.Halifax Guardian, Saturday 25 April 1840 p. 3York Herald, Saturday 25 April 1840 p. 3