Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-02-27

suy. veteran carriage maker. says
that II. b. Conklin the Long Isla nh
farmer who owned Rarus, first sug-
gested the Improvement Mr. Conklin
had been stage carpenter in New
York in his early years, and was a
man OF unusual mechanical skill. This
sulky weighed about forty-five pounds.
Charles ). Caffrey. who built the
sulkies drawn by Dexter Goldsmith
Maid. Maud =, and other record
breakers. SAYS he believes Daniel G..
Hetfield is entitled to the credit Of de-
signing the first high arch sulky., Mr..
Hetfield says he madesit about the year
1860, saving the axle in curve from a
two-inch hickory plank and bracing it
with an iron rod through the centre.
This sulky was built for Robert Wal
ker of Long Island, and was used by
him for his bay mare Belle of Portland
226
The sulky drawn by Maud S.. when
she first beat st. Julien's record
weighed about fifty pounds. When
she first beat 40 she drew a forty five
pound su1ky of new pattern built by
Joseph +. Pray of Boston The dis
tinguishing feature of this vehicle was
its bent and tilted axle, set at an
angle admitting of the closest hitch.
In her final race against time. at
Cleveland. in 1885. when she made her
record of 2.0Sa. which still remains
uneoualled by a trotter to high wheel
sulky on an oval track, the fleet
daughter of Harold drew a Caffrey
fitted with fHictionless roller bearing
aXles-a fact not generally known
among horsemen then or now. This
sulky weighed about forty-three
pounds.
Lighter ones have been built Jay
Eye-See pulled forty-one FOUNDER
when he set the trotting record at 30
in 1884, and other trotters made their
records to two wheelers, weighing UNI
der forty pounds, but it is doubted
whether some of the builders, in their
eagerness to cut down the weight. did
not sacrifice fisidity by making them
SO light The truss axle sulky, de-
signed by $. Toomey of Canal Dover
Ohio. in 1884 represented practically
the limit of mechanical possibilities
with high wheels. combining high
arch with extreme lghtness and
strength of construction.
Many of the high wheel sulkies made
in the eighties We're marvels of
strength ana rightly. framed of the
toughest hickory and braced with
perfect network of slender steel RODS in
every part to insure an even distribu-
tion of the strain. Doble and others
say the superiority of the pneumatic
sulky is principally in the case with
which a horse can take it around a
turn. but the records indicate that
some of the best of these high arch,
high wheel sulkies ran as fast on the
turns as in the stretches. q.
When Rarus trotted his mile in 213I
he went the first quarter in 0.33ia ana
the third quarter in 0.32A. thus making
the half mile on the turns in 1.06A. as
against o. in the back stretch and the
home stretch.
In all her record breaking perform
ances--and she lowered the worlds
record seven times-Maud S. only once
trotted the stretches as fast as she
trotted the turns. When she earned
her mark of 2.0SA she went the first
quarter in o.S2la and the third in OBJ,
making the half around the turns in
1.0Sls. as against 1854 for the
stretches.
Sterling Elicit of Boston. who was
neither Il carriage builder nor a
horseman. but Il maker of bicycles,
revolutionized the records of trotting
and the art of sulky construction al
most in a day, in the summer of 1892,
by fitting a pair of bicycle wheels to an
ordinary sulky. This sulky was first
seen in the Grand Circuit at De
just ten years ago today,
George. driven by Ed Geers. u
it to victory in the 2.11 race on Ju