TROTTING RACES. 
INCE 1824, when trotting may be said to have 
begun as a sport, the record has been reduced 
from 2 minutes 40 seconds to 2 minutes 8% seconds.? 
Whence comes this great advance? It is due to 
improvements in trotting courses, in sulkies, in 
horseshoes, in boots and toe-weights, in harness (par- 
1 Since this chapter was printed, the record has been reduced by 
Nancy Hanks to 2.04. | On this occasion, however, she drew the 
newly invented “bicycle” sulky with pneumatic rubber tires, the 
use of which is thought to make a saving of at least two seconds in 
a mile. Nancy Hanks is by Happy Medium, son of Rysdyck’s 
Hambletonian : her dam was Nancy Lee, by Dictator, another son 
of Hambletonian and brother to Dexter. Nancy Lee’s dam was by 
Edwin Forrest, of the half-bred Kentucky Hunter family to which 
Flora Temple belonged. Edwin Forrest also sired the dam of 
Mambrino King. 
