The sport is a combination of drag hunting, dog racing and steeplechasing, with the hounds taking the place of horses.
A 4-mile (6.4 km) drag was laid at Newmarket Heath with Bluecap winning in a little over 8 minutes, Wanton a close second, Richmond third by over 100 yards (91 m) and the bitch failing to finish.
As a comparison, it was said that Eclipse ran a 4-mile race at York, carrying 12-stone (76 kg), in the same time.
In his Foxes, foxhounds and fox-hunting, Richard Clapham stated "fell hounds trace their origin back to the old Talbot tans, while they later acquired a certain infusion of pointer blood ... in order to make hounds carry their heads higher."
[6] Famous trail hounds include Rattler, the first hound to win a hundred prizes but was poisoned by a competitor and Hartsop Magic who won thirty two prizes in 1985, twenty six in 1986 and thirty three in 1987.
And more recently Progress, Progress was in the Border Hound Trailing Association, in his racing career he won 4 Senior championships, 3 Langholm common ridings and A international.also in the four Seasons he ran 280 Trails, finishing in the first 6 233 times, 202 of those times in the first 3.