74 The Trotting and tbe Pacing Horse 



Nancy Hanks, 2.04 



When the 28-inch ball-bearing wheel, pneu- 

 matic tire, of the bicycle was applied to the sulky 

 in July, 1892, a revolution in harness speed was 

 inaugurated. It reduces friction and is seconds 

 faster than the high-wheel sulky. As there was 

 a violent tumble in prices soon after the bicycle 

 sulky had come into use, the pessimist charged 

 that its influence was cheapening and that it had 

 degraded the speed standard. It, however, was a 

 valuable improvement, in the interest of progress, 

 and it is idle to talk of returning to old methods. 

 Nancy Hanks followed Sunol on the summit. 

 She is a brown mare, foaled in 1886, by Happy 

 Medium, dam Nancy Lee by Dictator; second 

 dam Sophie by Edwin Forrest; and she was 

 bred by Hart Boswell of Lexington, Kentucky. 

 August 28, 1890, she trotted to a four-year-old 

 record of 2.14^, and soon thereafter was sold to 

 J. Malcolm Forbes of Boston. Driven by Budd 

 Doble, she trotted at Chicago, August 17, 1892, 

 to a record of 2.o7f, at Independence, Iowa, 

 August 31, to a record of 2.05^, and at Terre 

 Haute, September 28, 1892, to a record of 2.04. 

 The morning that she made her best record I was 



