[f. STEEPLE sb.1 + CHASE.
Cf. to hunt the steeple, steeple hunting, STEEPLE sb. 2 c, 6.]
1. A horse-race across country or on a made course with artificial fences, water-jumps, and other obstacles. Formerly, a race having a church steeple in view as goal, in which all intervening obstacles had to be cleared.
1805. Sporting Mag., in Racing & Steeple-chasing (Badm. Libr. 1900), 282. An Extraordinary Steeple-chase.
1818. ‘W. H. Scott,’ Brit. Field Sports, 433. A late Steeple Chase.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xvii. Tom Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase.
1884. A. E. T. Watson, in Longman’s Mag., April, 606. In these days steeples had something to do with steeple-chases.
attrib. 1839. Sporting Mag., April, 472. Men who make a profession of Steeple-chase riding. Ibid., 473. Ground … called in requisition to form part of the Steeple-chase course.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour (1893), 54. Caingey … was now hoisted on to the renowned steeple-chase horse again.
1862. Catal. Internat. Exhib., Brit., II. No. 4694. Hunting saddles, steeple-chase saddle.
1897. Badminton Mag., IV. 393. I won the regimental steeplechase cup with her last April.
fig. c. 1865. J. Wylde, in Circ. Sci., I. 394/2. Expending considerable time in a chemical steeple-chase.
1898. Francis de Pressensé, in 19th Cent., April, 523. Evidently all that is the result of this steeplechase of colonial aggrandisement, of this mad race for territory.
2. transf. A foot-race across country or over a course furnished with hurdles, ditches, and other obstacles.
1864. Jackson’s Oxf. Jrnl., 12 March, 5/4. Oxford & Cambridge Athletic Sports…. Steeple Chase, over about two miles of fair hunting country.
1897. Encycl. Sport, I. 58/1. (Athletics) Steeplechasing. For many years past no athletic sports programme has been considered quite complete without a steeplechase.
3. A parlor game played on a board representing a steeplechase course, each player having a metal figure of a horse, the movements of which are regulated by the casting of dice and by the nature of the obstacles supposed to be encountered.
1895. Stores’ Price List, Race, or Steeplechase Game.
1911. Encycl. Brit., XXV. 868/2. Steeplechase.
