Greyhound coursing is the competitive counterpart of the cooperative effort of hunting, completely fabricated in Great-Britain, out of the loss of the military / exercise of war by the aristocratic élites coupled with the early advent of a merchant élite, that shared the exercice of power. Indeed, coursing is the smallest set common to both the aristocrats and the boureois, because previous to 1671, the hare used to be the most prestigious animal on which whoever was legally entitled to hunt could unleash their dogs, whereas only the wealthiest of those who did not share in royal favours had the means to have it chased by greyhounds. The greyhounds' relative inefficiency at both retrieving and catching the hare, on / into which it is necessary that they should foolishly rush headlong in order that thanks to a leap aside, the hare sends them tumbling over a few metres away, making it necessary for them to display warlike aggressiveness, is a symbolic representation of the virtues / bravery those whose exclusive privilege it was wish they should be endowed with, the means of displaying / showing off both superiority and honour in a way that proceeds from its two major ideological components, as well as of competing and asserting inner coherence at the same time in comparison with those who did not enjoy the privilege. Home to the first historical evidence of this hunting competition, the Cotswold Games, purpotedly 'olympic', have merely borrowed from the classical period its literary style, closely associated with the early Stuarts' policy of re-pastoralizing the country, and are part and parcel of the political propaganda aimed at persuading both the aristocracy and the Gentry to leave London and return to their country seats in order to fulfill their traditional mission of social control. From cultural to social symbolism, at a time when control of the masses rested on ideology as much as on coercion, greyhound coursing is the idealized representation and symbolic expession of the power of the élites.