Ervin, Frank
Harness racing
b. Aug. 12, 1894, Pekin, IL
d. Sept. 30, 1991
Like many trainer/drivers, Ervin came from a harness racing family. He once drove in a race in which his father, grandfather, and two uncles were among the other drivers.
Ervin won more than 1,000 races after the U. S. Trotting Association began keeping official records in 1939. He may have had as many as 3,000 in his career, because he had raced for nearly thirty years before that. He claimed his first victory at Charleston, IL, in early 1911, when he was sixteen.
Among the great horses he trained and drove were Bret Hanover, who won a record 35 races in a row and is the only harness horse to be named horse of the year three times, 1964 through 1966; Yankee Lass, the first two-year-old filly to break 2 minutes, in 1957; Sampson Hanover, who once won 22 consecutive races; and Good Time, the first pacer to win Horse of the Year honors, in 1949.
Ervin won the Hambletonian twice and the Little Brown Jug three times. His career earnings amounted to well over $4 million.