Men parade their prize greyhounds at a coursing club meeting at Ophir, Central Otago, probably in the 1890s or early 1900s. The forerunner to modern greyhound racing, coursing began as a contest between farmers to keep hare numbers down, but quickly became popular with a wider audience. The first New Zealand coursing club was established in Christchurch in 1879. Coursing involved dogs (two at a time) pursuing a live hare, and soon animal welfare concerns were raised. It was finally outlawed in 1954, and instead, greyhounds ran after artificial lures around tracks, in groups of up to six or eight (the 2012 maximum).