6 The Third and Fourth Generation 



More than four seconds was clipped from the 

 record when, in 1892, the bicycle sulky replaced 

 the old wooden affair. Some of the increased 

 speed is undoubtedly due to the improvement 

 in the race track and in methods of training. 

 But these are not all, and probably not the most 

 important factors, else a skilful trainer should 

 be able to harness any horse to a modern sulky 

 and get racing speed out of him. 



Racing speed seems to be in the blood. 

 Look up the ancestry of this list of record- 

 breaking racers and you will be struck at once 

 by the recurrence, time after time, of a few 

 famous breeding animals in the pedigree of 

 nearly all of them. Notice the ancestry 

 of Alix, a horse chosen because it is possible to 

 trace his pedigree much more completely from 

 available sources than that of most of the 

 others. Even so, only 290 of his ancestors 

 have been found out of a possible 1,022 back 

 to the ninth generation (2 parents +4 grand- 

 parents -|- 8 great-grandparents -I-16-I-32+64+ 

 128-1-256-1-512 = 1,022). Out of these known 

 290 Imported Messenger occurs 33 times, his 



