Toughened up and then the thrill of the chase

ANTHONY DALY. Hurling manager, 40, Coursing
The Dublin manager's love of coursing arose out of a way of life in Clarecastle – a way of life he believes people have treasured for centuries

WHERE DID your interest in coursing come from?

Since I was nine or 10 I would have been off trapping hares. It’s kind of a way of life in Clarecastle, where I grew up. My brother Michael would have had dogs and I often had to feed them when he’d be working.

My uncle Haulie, who captained Clare to a hurling league title in 1946, would have always been big into coursing, and been chairman of the club.

What’s involved in a session of trapping hares?

What you do is you go in to a field. We’ve traditional preserves where we go, or where the farmer gives you permission to go in and trap the hares. There’d be netmen. They’d go to the gaps in the field.

It’s very hard to cover the ground because obviously the hare will try and escape and we want him to escape towards the gaps, but some of them are smart out – they’ll come back against you.

It’s always great crack slagging the fella who the hare got back past. Everyone has their own kind of a shout, to try and rise the hare – everything from “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” to “Yah! Yah!” Everyone will have an auld stick with them as well. If there was a bush in the field you’d hit it an old wallop. A pheasant could jump up in front of you; you’d get the fright of your life.

There’d be an interval. The committee would provide sandwiches.

That’s one of my earliest memories – you’d be guaranteed an auld bottle of 7Up and a bag of Taytos on a Sunday if you went.

It toughened us up as well. You’d be out in the worst of weather. You’d fall into trenches, but great auld crack.

What do you like about coursing?

I love the sport of watching a hare making an eejit out of two greyhounds. It’s the thrill of the chase.

What about the hares?

It can’t be pleasant for them. Look, coursing is coursing. That’s what hounds and hares are bred to do.

In the wild, foxes follow hares. It makes me die – all these people who say, “Ah, the poor hare” and then they have their tenner each way on the Grand National every year when the horse has to face into seven-foot ditches and a jockey whipping the arse off him and they’ve no problem with that. Or they’ve no problem going off on a deep-sea fishing holiday and horsing the neck off a shark for two hours.

I just think that somewhere along the way we’ve lost the plot with the country way of life. There’s a way of life that people have treasured for centuries and there’s people coming along and telling us what we can and can’t do.

There’s nothing more important for me as a coursing man than when that cheer goes up for a hare who gets home that you thought might be in a spot of bother on the field.

As soon as there is a hare in trouble there’s three guys coming in from the side whipping that hare off. And the dogs are muzzled now as well, which they weren’t until 1993.

What are your career highlights?

We had tremendous luck a few years back – my brother Michael and Tom Howard – we won the Derby in Clonmel in 2002 with Murty’s Gang, and we got to two Champions’ Stake finals and won numerous cups and trials around the place.

What’s the Derby at Clonmel like?

We always mention the film Man about Dog when we’re trying to explain it to people who don’t know anything about coursing, but I always say, some year, on the Wednesday of the meeting in early February, if you can twist a day sick or something, go to Clonmel, go up in to the stand, and just watch the atmosphere. There’d be 20,000 people there. It’s absolutely electric.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen at a coursing meeting?

I famously remember a dog belonging to my uncle and he was running in a road meeting. I was only a young lad. It was in the local stake, out in Lynch’s land, in Claremont.

There’d be huge local pride in winning it. Haulie was very confident about this dog he had. It was well bred. The two dogs were let up the field and the hare was in front of them.

Haulie’s fella, whatever way he cocked his head, he spotted Haulie and trotted over to him, and started licking him. He was absolutely mortified.

Fellas would be awful proud about the way the dogs would hunt as well.

There’d be great saving grace, even if he was slow, in, “He’s following it anyway.”

Ironically, the cup is named after him now – the Haulie Daly Cup!

• In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick