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and pneumatic tires, a vehicle that is from two to three seconds faster 

 than the old-fashioned racing-sulkey. 



Like Maud S., so recently the champion of trotters, Nancy Hanks, 

 the wearer of the laurels, is an unbeaten mare, and the parallel runs 

 further, as each of these magnificent trotters lost but one heat in her 

 career. The gray Wisconsin gelding, Charley Ford, once won a heat 

 from Maud S., and Nancy Hanks in her first race lost the first heat to 

 Bonnie Wilmore, since which no horse has ever led her down the 

 home-stretch. 



Nancy Hanks is a richly colored, neatly made bay mare, now six 

 years old, and was bred by Hart Boswell, of Lexington, Ky. She is 

 by that truly great sire Haj^py Medium, out of Nancy Lee, by Dicta- 

 tor, her dam Sophy. Hapj^y Medium, her sire, was a trotter himself, 

 taking a record of 2.32i in a race in 1869, and was by Hambletonian, 

 out of the great old mare Princess (2.30), after Flora Temple, the 

 best mare of her day on the turf. 



She is about fifteen hands high, nicely turned and balanced, the 

 shoulders quite oblique, the chest deep, the back and coupling smooth 

 and strong, the quarters muscular and full, and the legs shapely, fine, 

 and good. Her head and neck are chiseled in the most refined lines, 

 and as beautiful as Yo Tambien's, both the champion mares having a 

 slightly dishing nose, wide forehead, and kindly eyes, which combined 

 present that most exquisite type of the equine beauty that has been 

 the theme of bard and the ideal of artists and sculptor for ages. As 

 may be inferred from her performances, the action of Nancy Hanks ^s 

 of the best order and in itself almost perfect. At her highest flights 

 of speed, so smooth and machine-like is it that she seems to trot with- 

 out effort, going with that easy, deceptive glide, the momentum of which 

 only the watch may gauge. Tliere is no excess of knee-action, but a 

 straight, gliding motion, no sprawling behind, but the true line action, 

 wherein every movement is straight forward, and there is no waste of 

 energy or force. With this she has the most admirable disposition, 

 easy, even temper, and an inbred, inherent, and deeply rooted instinct 

 to stick to the trot as her fastest and her natural gait. All these 

 attributes combine to make her, physically and mentally, the most per- 

 fect racing-machine the trotting turf has seen. 



Nancy Hanks appeared on the turf as a three-year-old at Harrods- 

 burg, July 31st, 1889, defeating a good field. She trotted the third 



