The last slipper

In the 167 years that the blue riband of hare coursing, the Waterloo Cup, has been run, there have been just 21 slippers. For those unfamiliar with coursing, perhaps I should explain that I don’t mean over the years people at the event have been spotted wearing carpet slippers, and a record of these sightings meticulously kept. No, the slipper is the red-coated official who holds back the competing pair of greyhounds until he judges that the hare has about 100 yards’ start and both dogs have it in their sights. Then he runs forward with the animals frantically bounding under their leashes and releases them with a balletic flourish. Done well — that is to say, an even slip on the upbound — and the tableau of red-coated man, pure-bred sighthound, curling leash and retreating hare is enough to make time stand still and the office of slipper more sacerdotal than purely functional. Last week, at a press screening of The Last Waterloo Cup, a documentary film by Paul Yule (shown on BBC2 on Friday, 30th), I met Arran Atmore, the last slipper of the last Waterloo.

After seeing the film, I was ashamed. I went to see the Waterloo Cup by accident in 1999, loved it, went three years subsequently, and assumed I knew nearly all there was to know about hare coursing. More ludicrous still, I’d plunged in and written a newspaper article about it. But at this year’s Waterloo Cup, where I saw old men cry, and again during the film, in which I glimpsed areas of knowledge about dogs and hares I hadn’t dreamed of, it dawned on me how little I knew and felt and understood about the subject compared with everyone else.