Read as part of the sport reading journey
The subtitle – The True Story of Three Men
and a Racehorse - sums it up really. The horse was Seabiscuit and the three
men, Charles Howard, Tom Smith and Red Pollard, were the owner, trainer and
jockey respectively. From 1936 to 1940 these disparate (in some cases
desperate) characters came together to create one of the great stories in
sport; but one I was only dimly aware of as the title of the 2003 film.
The book plots each of the team’s back
stories, of which only owner Howard’s can be considered successful, having got rich
through getting in early on the automobile boom. Trainer Smith was already 56,
a loner, and after a lifetime working and living with horses (for the cavalry,
a cattle ranch, and a rodeo/circus) had finally washed up at a one-horse racing
stable with only his reputation as a bit of a horse-whisperer.
Jockey Pollard although only in his
mid-twenties had been racing horses, without any conspicuous success, for 12
years and had the battered body to prove it. Seabiscuit himself had some
pedigree, descending from the renowned Man O’ War through his sire Hard Tack;
but his gait was suspect, his appearance unconvincing and his temperament notoriously
difficult.
From these unlikely components emerged a
horseracing sensation that captured the imagination of pre-war United States.
The sport’s popularity was enormous attracting both the masses (huge
attendances are reported) and celebrities (Bing Crosby was an owner).
Hillenbrand, through the lives of the men,
covers well the big pictures of the industry history (fluctuating with the
legality of betting) and the stunningly hard life of the jockeys. But it is
with the cut and thrust of the individual races that the writing excels.
As no great lover of racing, or horses in
general, it opened my eyes to the expertise and patience of the trainer and the
skill and courage of the jockey. By the end of the book I had some appreciation
of how strong the bond between horse and horseman can be.
The story would be hard to swallow as
fiction; as fact it is an extraordinary tale, well told, of never say die and
overcoming the odds.
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