核心畫面

Picture a rider with no track to follow: the church steeple in the next village is the finish, and everything between here and there — hedges, ditches, a stream — has to be jumped rather than gone around. Steeplechase still carries that picture. Whatever the race, the obstacles are not an extra test at the end; they are the course itself, and you keep meeting them while you are already tired.

可以想成一個騎手,眼前沒有跑道。遠方那座教堂的尖塔就是終點。從這裡到那裡,籬笆、水溝、小溪,一律不繞路,直接跳過去。更多收起可以想成一個騎手,眼前沒有跑道。遠方那座教堂的尖塔就是終點。從這裡到那裡,籬笆、水溝、小溪,一律不繞路,直接跳過去。steeplechase 到今天都還留著這個畫面:障礙不是最後才出現的考驗,它本身就是賽道,而且你是在已經跑累的狀態下一次又一次遇到它。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary gives the word as steeple + chase, from 18th-century Irish horse races where riders found their way by heading for a church steeple. The obstacles in today's races are what is left of those fields.

Wiktionary 把這個字拆成 steeple(教堂尖塔)加 chase(追逐),來自十八世紀愛爾蘭的賽馬:騎手靠著遠方的教堂尖塔辨方向。今天賽道上的欄架和水池,可以看成當年那些田野障礙留下來的影子。

Wiktionary entry for steeplechase (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:834180352): Compound of steeple + chase, from horse races in 18th century Ireland in which orientation of the course was by reference to a church steeple.

One branch

要一路跳過障礙的長距離比賽

兩種比賽都是核心畫面的直系後代,差別只在跑的是馬還是人,場地是田野還是跑道。

noun · C1

A long horse race in which the horses have to jump over fences, gates, ditches and water along the way, either across open country or round a course built with such jumps.

障礙賽馬