| Seabiscuit | |
|---|---|
Seabiscuit statue, Santa Anita Park |
|
| Sire | Hard Tack |
| Grandsire | Man o' War |
| Dam | Swing On |
| Damsire | Whisk Broom II |
| Sex | Stallion |
| Foaled | 1933 |
| Country | United States |
| Colour | Light Bay |
| Breeder | Gladys Mills Phipps |
| Owner | Charles Howard |
| Trainer | Sunny Jim Fitzimmons, later Tom Smith |
| Record | 89: 33-15-13 |
| Earnings | $437,730 |
| Major wins | |
| Massachusetts Handicap (1937) Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Handicap (1937, 1938) Havre de Grace Handicap (1938) Match race against War Admiral (1938) Match race against Ligaroti (1938) (1938) Pimlico Special (1938) Hollywood Gold Cup (1938) Santa Anita Handicap (1940) |
|
| Awards | |
| U.S. Champion Handicap Male (1937 & 1938) U.S. Horse of the Year (1938) |
|
| Horse (Equus ferus caballus) | |
| Last updated on September 16, 2006 | |
Seabiscuit (May 23, 1933 – May 17, 1947) was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. From an inauspicious start, Seabiscuit became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Seabiscuit became the subject of a 1949 film, The Story of Seabiscuit; a 2001 book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend; and a 2003 film, Seabiscuit, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
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Seabiscuit was foaled on May 23, 1933, from the mare Swing On and sired by Hard Tack, a son of Man o' War.[1] Seabiscuit was named for his father, as hardtack or "sea biscuit" is the name for a type of cracker eaten by sailors.[2]
The bay colt grew up on Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. He was owned by Gladys Mills Phipps. He was undersized, knobby-kneed,[1] and given to sleeping and eating for long periods.
Initially , he was trained by Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, who had taken Gallant Fox to the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. Fitzsimmons saw some potential in Seabiscuit, but felt the horse was too lazy, and with most of his time taken by training Omaha (the 1935 Triple Crown winner), Seabiscuit was relegated to a punishing schedule of smaller races. He failed to win his first ten races, usually finishing back in the field. After that, training him was almost an afterthought, and the horse was sometimes the butt of stable jokes. As a two-year-old, Seabiscuit raced thirty-five times (a heavy racing schedule),[1] coming in first five times, and finishing second seven times. These included three claiming races, in which he could have been purchased for $2500, but he had no takers.[1] Still, at the end of the racing season, he was occasionally used as an outrider horse.
While Seabiscuit had not lived up to his racing potential, he was not the poor performer that Fitzsimmons had taken him for or as depicted in the 2003 movie—many thoroughbred racehorses never break their maiden, and fail to win even one race. The next season, the colt was again less than spectacular. His owners sold the horse to automobile entrepreneur Charles S. Howard for $8000.[1] This was no bargain price for a horse.[1]
Seabiscuit's new trainer, Tom Smith,[1] with his unorthodox training methods, gradually brought Seabiscuit out of his lethargy. Smith paired the horse with Canadian jockey Red Pollard (1909–1981), who had experience racing in the West and in Mexico. On August 22, 1936, Seabiscuit raced for the first time for his new jockey and trainer, in Detroit, without impressing anyone. But improvements came quickly and, in their remaining eight races in the East, Seabiscuit and Pollard won several times, including Detroit's Governor's Handicap (worth $5,600) and the Scarsdale Handicap ($7,300) at Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, New York.
In early November 1936, Howard and Smith shipped the horse to California by rail. His last two races of the year were at Bay Meadows racetrack in San Mateo, California. The first was the $2,700 Bay Bridge Handicap, run over one mile (1.6 km). Despite starting badly and carrying the top weight of 116 lb (53 kg), Seabiscuit won by five lengths. At the World's Fair Handicap (Bay Meadows' most prestigious stakes race), Seabiscuit led throughout.
In 1937, the Santa Anita Handicap, California's most prestigious race, was worth over $125,000 ($2 million in 2010) to the winner and was known colloquially as "The Hundred Grander." In his first warm-up race at Santa Anita Park, Seabiscuit won easily. Unfortunately, in his second race of 1937, the San Antonio Handicap, he suffered a setback; bumped at the start and then pushed wide, Seabiscuit came in fifth, losing to Rosemont.
The two met again in the Santa Anita Handicap just a week later, where Rosemont won by a nose. The defeat was devastating to Smith and Howard, and was widely attributed in the press to a riding error.[1]a[›] Pollard, who had not seen Rosemont over his shoulder until too late, was blind in one eye due to an accident during a training ride, a fact he had hidden throughout his career. Regardless, the horse was rapidly becoming a favorite among California racing fans, and his fame spread as he won his next three races, before Howard chose to again relocate the horse, this time for the more prestigious Eastern racing circuit.
Seabiscuit's run of victories continued unabated. Between June 26 and August 7, he ran five times, each time at a stakes race, and each time he won, despite steadily increasing imposts of up to 130 lb (59 kg). On September 11, Smith accepted an impost of 132 lb (60 kg) for the Narragansett Special. On race day, the ground was slow and heavy, and entirely unsuited to "the Biscuit," even without the heaviest burden of his career. Smith wished to scratch, but Howard overruled him. Seabiscuit was never in the running, and trudged home in third. The streak was snapped, but the season was not over; Seabiscuit won his next three races (one a dead heat) before finishing the year with a second place at Pimlico.
In 1937, Seabiscuit won eleven of his fifteen races and was the year's leading money winner in the United States. However, it was War Admiral, having won the Triple Crown that season, who was voted the most prestigious honor, the American Horse of the Year Award.
In 1938, as a five-year-old, Seabiscuit's success continued. Unfortunately, on February 19, Pollard suffered a terrible fall while racing on Fair Knightess, another of Howard's horses. With Pollard's chest crushed by the weight of the fallen horse, and his ribs and arm broken, Howard tried three jockeys before settling on George Woolf, an already successful rider and old friend of Pollard, to ride Seabiscuit.
Woolf's first race was the Santa Anita Handicap, the "hundred grander" that Seabiscuit had narrowly lost the previous year. Seabiscuit was drawn on the outside, and from the start, was impeded by another horse, Count Atlas, angling out. The two were locked together for the first straight and by the time Woolf had his horse disentangled, they were six lengths from the pace. The pair battled hard, but were beaten in a photo finish by the fast finishing Santa Anita Derby winner, Stagehand (owned by Maxwell Howard, not related to Charles), who had been assigned 30 pounds (13.6 kg) fewer than Seabiscuit.
Throughout 1937 and 1938, the media speculated about a match race with the seemingly invincible War Admiral (also sired by Man o' War, Seabiscuit's grandsire). The two horses were scheduled to meet in three stakes races, but one or the other was scratched, usually due to Seabiscuit's dislike of heavy ground. After extensive negotiation, a match race was organized for May 1938 at Belmont, but once again Seabiscuit scratched. By June, Pollard had made a recovery and on June 23 agreed to work a young colt named Modern Youth. Spooked by something on the track, the horse broke rapidly through the stables and threw Pollard, shattering his leg, and seemingly ending his career.
A match race was held, but not against War Admiral. Instead, it was against Ligaroti, a highly regarded horse owned by the Hollywood entertainer Bing Crosby and Howard's son, Lindsay, through Binglin Stable in an event organized to promote Crosby's resort and Del Mar Racetrack in Del Mar, California. With Woolf aboard, Seabiscuit won that race, despite persistent fouling from Ligaroti's jockey. After three more outings, with only one win, he would finally go head to head with War Admiral in the Pimlico Special in Baltimore, Maryland.[3]
Sent to race on the East Coast of the United States, on October 16, 1938, Seabiscuit ran second by two lengths in the Laurel Stakes to the filly Jacola who set a new Laurel Park Racecourse record of 1:37.00 for one mile.[4]
George Woolf always said he never had more fun on a racehorse than he did that day in '38 at Pimlico, when Silent Tom Smith, the horse's trainer, lifted Woolf aboard Seabiscuit for the big match race against War Admiral.[3]
On November 1, 1938, Seabiscuit met War Admiral and jockey Charles Kurtsinger in what was dubbed the "Match of the Century." The event itself was run over 1 and 3/16 miles (1.91 km), and the Pimlico Race Course, from the grandstands to the infield, was jammed solid with fans. Trains were run from all over the country to bring fans to the race, and the estimated 40,000 at the track were joined by some 40 million listening on the radio. War Admiral was the prohibitive favorite (1–4 with most bookmakers) and a near unanimous selection of the writers and tipsters, excluding the California faithful.
Head-to-head races favor fast starters, and War Admiral's speed from the gate was the stuff of legend. Seabiscuit, on the other hand, was a pace stalker, skilled at holding with the pack before destroying the field with late acceleration. From the scheduled walk-up start, few gave him a chance to lead War Admiral into the first turn. Smith knew these things, and had been secretly training Seabiscuit to run against this type, using a starting bell and a whip to give the horse a Pavlovian burst of speed from the start.
When the bell rang, Seabiscuit ran away from the Triple Crown champion. Despite being drawn on the outside, Woolf led by over a length after just 20 seconds and soon crossed over to the rail position. Halfway down the backstretch, War Admiral started to cut into the lead, gradually pulling level with Seabiscuit, and then slightly ahead. Following advice he had received from Pollard, Woolf had eased up on Seabiscuit, allowing his horse to see his rival, and then asked for more effort. Two hundred yards from the wire, Seabiscuit pulled away again and continued to extend his lead over the closing stretch, finally winning by four clear lengths despite the fact that War Admiral ran his best time for the distance.
As a result of his races that year and the victory over War Admiral, Seabiscuit was named "Horse of the Year" for 1938. Seabiscuit was also the number one newsmaker of 1938.[5] The only prize that eluded him was the Santa Anita Handicap.
Unfortunately, Seabiscuit faltered during a race. Woolf, who was riding him at that time, claimed that he simply felt the horse stumble, when he actually landed his leg dangerously hard upon the ground. The injury was not life threatening, although many predicted he would never race again. The diagnosis was a ruptured suspensory ligament in the front left leg. With Seabiscuit out of action, Smith and Howard concentrated on another of their horses, an Argentine stallion named Kayak II. Pollard and Seabiscuit recovered together at Charles Howard's ranch, with Pollard's new wife Agnes, who had nursed him through his initial recovery. Slowly, both horse and rider learned to walk again (Pollard joked that they "had four good legs between" them),[6] although poverty had brought Pollard to the edge of alcoholism. A local doctor broke and reset Pollard's leg to aid his recovery, and slowly Red regained the confidence to sit on a horse. Wearing a brace to stiffen his atrophied leg, he began to ride Seabiscuit again, first at a walk and later at a trot and canter. Howard was delighted at their improvement, as he longed for Seabiscuit to race again, but was extremely worried about Pollard's involvement, as his leg was still fragile.
Over the fall and winter of 1939, Seabiscuit's fitness seemed to improve by the day. By the end of the year, Smith was ready to confound veterinary opinion by returning the horse to race training, with a collection of stable jockeys in the saddle. By the time of his comeback race, however, Pollard had cajoled Howard into allowing him the ride. After again scratching from a race due to the soft going, the pair finally lined up at the start of the La Jolla Handicap at Santa Anita, on February 9, 1940. Compared to what had gone before, it was an unremarkable performance (Seabiscuit was third, bested by two lengths) but it was nevertheless an amazing comeback for both. By their third comeback race, Seabiscuit was back to his winning ways, running away from the field in the San Antonio Handicap to beat his erstwhile training partner, Kayak II, by two and a half lengths. Burdened by only 124 pounds (56 kg), Seabiscuit equalled the track record for a mile and 1/16.
There was only one race left. A week after the San Antonio, Seabiscuit and Kayak II both took the gate for the Santa Anita Handicap, and its $121,000 prize. 78,000 paying spectators crammed the racetrack, most backing the people's champion to complete his amazing return to racing. The start was inauspicious, as a tentative Pollard found his horse blocked almost from start. Picking his way through the field, Seabiscuit briefly led. As they thundered down the back straight, Seabiscuit became trapped in third place, behind leader Whichcee and Wedding Call on the outside. Trusting in his horse's acceleration, Pollard steered a dangerous line between the leaders and burst into the lead, taking the firm ground just off the rail. As Seabiscuit showed his old surge, Wedding Call and Whichcee faltered, and Pollard drove his horse on, taking the Hundred Grander by a length and a half from the fast-closing Kayak II.
Pandemonium engulfed the course. Neither horse nor rider, nor trainer nor owner could get through the sea of well-wishers to the winner's enclosure for some time.
Seabiscuit is the Horatio Alger hero of the turf, the horse that came up from nothing on his own courage and will to win.[1]
On April 10, Seabiscuit's retirement from racing was officially announced. When he was retired to the Ridgewood Ranch near Willits, California, Seabiscuit was horse racing's all-time leading money winner. Put out to stud, Seabiscuit sired 108 foals, including two moderately successful racehorses: Sea Sovereign and Sea Swallow. Over 50,000 visitors made the trek to Ridgewood Ranch to see Seabiscuit in the seven years he spent there before his death. His burial site is to this day a secret, known only to the immediate Howard family.
On June 23, 2007, a statue of Seabiscuit was unveiled at Seabiscuit's home and final resting place, Ridgewood Ranch.
In 1939, Warner Bros. released their animated take on Seabiscuit's underdog story with their Porky Pig cartoon, Porky and Teabiscuit.
In 1940, right after the spectacular Santa Anita win and at the moment of the horse's retirement, track writer B. K. Beckwith wrote Seabiscuit: The Saga of a Great Champion, with a foreword by Grantland Rice.
At Santa Anita Park, a life-sized bronze statue of Seabiscuit, hand-tooled by Frank Buchler, has been on display since 1941 - it now stands in the walking ring at the track's "Seabiscuit Court."
Businessman and racehorse owner W. Arnold Hanger donated a statuette of Seabiscuit to the Keeneland library in the 1940s.
In 1949, a fictionalized account was made into the motion picture The Story of Seabiscuit, starring Shirley Temple. Sea Sovereign played the title role. An otherwise undistinguished film, it did include actual match race footage of War Admiral.
In 1958, Seabiscuit was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
In 1963, Ralph Moody wrote Come On Seabiscuit (ISBN 0-8032-8287-7), illustrated by Robert Riger, and recently returned to print by the University of Nebraska Press.
In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century (1999), Seabiscuit was ranked twenty-fifth. War Admiral was thirteenth, and Seabiscuit's grandsire and War Admiral's sire, Man o' War, placed first.
In 2001, Laura Hillenbrand wrote Seabiscuit: An American Legend (ISBN 0-449-00561-5). The book became a bestseller, and in 2003, Universal Studios released Seabiscuit, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
In 2009, after an 8-year-long grassroots effort by Maggie Van Ostrand and Chuck Lustick, Seabiscuit was honored by the United States Postal Service with a stamp bearing his likeness. Thousands of signatures were obtained from all over the nation, and the final approval was given by Citizens Stamp Committee member Joan Mondale, wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale.
Pedigree for Seabiscuit
1933 Bay colt
| Sire Hard Tack b. 1926 |
Man o' War ch. 1917 |
Fair Play ch. 1905 |
Hastings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fairy Gold | |||
| Mahubah b. 1910 |
Rock Sand | ||
| Merry Token | |||
| Tea Biscuit 1912 |
Rock Sand br. 1900 |
Sainfoin | |
| Roquebrune | |||
| Seas Over ch. 1893 |
Hanover | ||
| Tea Rose | |||
| Dam Swing On b. 1926 |
Whisk Broom II ch. 1907 |
Broomstick b. 1901 |
Ben Brush |
| Elf | |||
| Audience 1901 |
Sir Dixon | ||
| Sallie McClelland | |||
| Balance b. 1919 |
Rabelais br. 1900 |
St. Simon | |
| Satirical | |||
| Balancoire b. 1911 |
Meddler | ||
| Ballantrae |
Seabiscuit ran 89 times at 16 different lengths over the course of his career.[7]
^ a: The Saturday Evening Post, dated April 27, 1940, reported "By the following March the horse failed only by inches—because his jockey erred in looking back—to win in his first try at the Santa Anita Handicap, richest of all races."[1]