by Kate Manning

Created on: May 26, 2009   Last Updated: June 25, 2009

National Hunt is the term used in England and Ireland for Steeplechasing. This sport involves horses racing over various distances and over obstacles - either hurdles or brush fences.

There is an ongoing debate surrounding national hunt racing, as some people think it is a cruel sport. However, much of the time, people who claim this do not look deep into the world of steeplechasing, the training methods, the good conditions that the horses are kept in and the excellent way they are treated.

National hunt racing is a very popular sport in England and Ireland, and currently in England there are 44 tracks that cater to national hunt racing, out of 60. This number does not include Ireland's racecourses. The sport would not be popular if its athletes were treated unkindly or cruelly at all. Outside of the UK, steeple chasing is a popular sport in many other European countries like France, Germany, and Austria - Australia and America, although in the US, the sport is centered mainly in the North East, in states such as Virginia and Maryland.

Behind the scenes, horses get 24/7 care, whereby they are exercised in a morning on the gallops, usually located at the trainers own farm. Afterwards, they are cooled off, bathed, groomed and often turned out. Some may go back to the stalls depending on the trainers schedule for their horses. They are fed three or four times a day, in order to maintain their strength and health, since they exercise and race off many calories. Horses will have their own personal groom, who looks after only a few horses each, so they can give each horse ample attention. They muck the stalls out and groom, keep the horses warm or cool depending on the weather, turned them out to pasture or put them on stall rest if they had suffered an injury. A great percentage of the time, horses are treated as royalty because, as everyone knows, if it wasn't for the horses, there would be no racing.

When it comes to the steeplechase racing itself, animal activists focus only on what they see. They think a horse is whipped to run faster, pushed to jump over obstacles that hurt them, and treated only as entertainment. This is not the case. Horses in National Hunt races are running at a steady pace, usually an open canter for most of the race. Since the races are a minimum of 2 miles, they need to preserve their energy. Running at top speed would not do very much for them, and only tire them out sooner.

A horse will always start out its racing career in a

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