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

as fast and as stout as the champions
OF today, and that given the adyan-
tages available TO twentieth century
flyers, Goldsmith Maid could have
euualled the record of Cresceus. 2.0aA.
If poble has been correctly quoted,
he believes that thirty years of con-
slant effort to improve the breed of
trotting horses by selection and de-
velopmcnt have counted for nothing in
advancing the limit of speed from 211A
to 220t4 Every second and quarter
second Clipped off the champion record
has been the result of these the i'm
provenept in sulkies has probably done
more than all the rest, he says.
While few horsemen willsasree with
Doble in assembling TO mechanical aids
all the advancement in speed, every
turfman who can recall the old-tiIne
champions is aware that they trotted
under conditions vastly different from
these of today. as TO tracks, training
methods. shooting. rigging and sulkies,
ana in no field, perhaps has greater
progress been made than in sulky
building.
The origin of the vehicle which has
played such an important part in the
history of the trotting horse is lost in
the mists of the past Carriage build
ers say that after the French. in the
eighteenth century, had cut the old
fashioned Berlin coach down to the
coupe form, now represented by the
prouehanl, they halved II again and
made closed carriage for one passen-
ger. calling ii the disobligeante. AL
first 1t was Il four wheeled vehicle but
was later cur down to the two wheeled
form, somewhat resembling a modern
hanson. with closed, panelled body
suspended in front of the axle by
means of crude leather thorough braces
or sling springs" According to Eel
tons Treatise on Carriages" written
in England, in 1896, this was the proto-
type of the modern sulky.
DR.. Darwin, an eminent physician, is
said to have introduced the type in
England. He lost so much time in al
lowing others to ride With him on his
professional visits, so the story goes,
that he had a disobligeante built 50
marrow that it could not carry two
persons. His disappointed friends.
divining his purpose. derisively called
his vehicle a ''sulky''
Another and perhaps more plausible,
account of the origin of the sulky
Identifies il with the ancient two
wheeled vehicle immortalized by Oliver
Wendell Holmes in THE Wonderful
One Tloss Shay" Chaises were COM
paratively common in New York as
early as 1870, when, according to Il
local newspaper of that date, upward
of seventy of them were carried over
the ferry in one day on the occa sion of
horse race on Hampstead Plains
Chaises OF gigs of the lightest construc-
ton We're called WHISTLES. because
horses could whisk them along at a
rapid rate of speed and quickly pass
other carriages on the road
Whatever may have been its origin.
the olQ-time sulky used in the earliest
trotuinS matches in which horses Went
in harness was little more or little less
than a gig in simplified form. built
lightly throughout, with no other body
Than IA seat suspended by skeleton.
framework of iron. The weight of the
best sulky was probably not less than
one hundred and twenty-five pounds at
the time the chestnut horse from Bos-
ton trotted in 2.4S1a at Philadelphia on
August %, 1910. This is the first re-
corded trotting performance in America
in which it is known that a sullly was
used, though Daniel G. Hetfeld. Il vet
Gran wheeIright and horseman, of
Railway, n. j.. has in his possession
Snnyyino hn Loo
Ross, of Wheatsheaf. n. j.. built an
improved trotting sulky in which races
We're driven on the Westfeld flats in
1909
Goldsmith Maid and all the great
trotters that preceded her made their
records to sukies of this primitive de-
sign, some with springs and others
without springs. 1t is natural to sup
pose that Yankee ingenuity was from
the first directed to decreasing the
weight of the Vehicle and improving its
lightness of draught. but it is only of
late years that any material advance
ment has been made in the design.
Old time norsemen say the first Ameri-
can sulky builders of decided note were
Dusenbury & Van Duzen and William
Fish. in Chrystie street, New York
The sulky drawn by Flora Temple
when she set the worlds record at
a19ai. back in 1856, is perhaps the old
est one now known to be in existence
though Joseph Cairn Simpson. of Cali
formal. has one of about the same
period. The historic vehicle drawn by,
Flora Temple was discovered only
about a year ago in the loft of an old
stable on Long Island, near the site of
the once famous Fashion track. 1t is
now in the possession Of Charles s.
Caffrey. of Camden. n. j.. who owns
also the counterpart of the sulky
drawn by Goldsmith Maid when she
trotted in PA.
Flora Temples sulky was built by
Peter Dubois of Green street, who was
one of the best wheelwrights of his day
IN this special line of work. Its wheels
are nearly as high as a mans head.
The axle is practically straight. and all
its parts are heavy and crude by conn
parison with the work of a later period.
The shafts in particular are heavy and
practically straight, little effort having
been made. apparently, to shape the
thills to the form of the horse To
avoid hitting the axle with the hooks