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STAN ISAACS Out of Left Field |
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A Closer Look at the Bestselling Book by Laura Hillenbrand  |
The Seabiscuit book's a loving work, but awfully fanciful, too
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
THE BOOK "Seabiscuit,
An American Legend," is a phenomenon because it is a book
about horse racing that has made No. 1 on the New York Times
best-seller list. It is a phenomenon, too, because the woman,
Laura Hillenbrand, who wrote it, suffers from poor health and
has had to overcome all sorts of physical difficulties to write
the book; her story is probably more inspirational than the story
of her beloved Seabiscuit.
I had mixed emotions reading the book. I was turned off immediately
by the constant exaggeration. She wrote that trainer Sunny Jim
Fitzsimmons "was a household name across America."
Fitzsimmons was an outstanding trainer, for sure, but most Americans'
knowledge of horse racing does not go much beyond awareness that
there is such a race as the Kentucky Derby.
She noted that Seabiscuit put in a workout of "an impossible
22 2/5 seconds" which "may have been the fastest quarter
ever run by a yearling." And she said jockey George Woolf
"may have been the greatest talent racing ever saw,"
a statement that slights such as Eddie Arcaro, Willie Shoemaker
and at least a few others. And she said Woolf and Red Pollard
"took the racing world by storm" when they won races
at Tijuana, Mexico one year. Pollard's 53 winners placing him
in a tie for 20th in win percentage of the nation's jockeys attested
to something less than a hurricane.
After a time, I began to tolerate the exaggerations and gain
admiration for Hillenbrand's devotion to this horse. She has
written a fantasy based on fact; the love she has for Seabiscuit
transcends her tendency to make excuses for the horse when he
loses and overdramatize the obstacles he faced to win. There
is poetry in her descriptions of horse races.
These are some of her words describing the action in the great
match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in the Pimlico
Special, Nov. 1, 1938:
"Seabiscuit cocked an ear toward his rival, listening
to him, watching him. He refused to let War Admiral pass. The
battle was joined. The horses stretched out over the track. Their
strides, each 21 feet in length, fell in perfect synch. They
rubbed shoulders and hips, heads snapping up and reaching out
together and unfolding in unison. The speed was impossible; At
the mile mark a 15-year-old speed record fell under them, broken
by a full second.
"…They ripped out of the backstretch and leaned together
into the final turn, their strides still rising and falling together.
The crowds by the rails thickened, their faces a pointillism
of colors, the dappling sound of distinct voices now blending
into a sustained shout.
"The horses strained onward…(jockey) Kurtsinger pushed
on War Admiral's neck and drove with all his strength, sweeping
over his mount's right side. War Admiral was slashng at the air,
reaching deeper and deeper into himself…(jockey) Woolf was
still, his eyes trained on War Admiral's head. He could see that
Seabiscuit was looking right at his opponent. War Admiral glared
back at him, his eyes wide open. Woolf saw Seabiscuit's ears
flatten to his head and knew….one horse was going to crack."
Seabiscuit won the race by four lengths. Essentially, he won
because in a match race the horse that gets out front has a huge
advantage. War Admiral was considered the faster starter, but
Seabiscuit's trainer Tom Smith worked to get him out of the gate
fast and jockey Woolf did precisely that. Many years later, in
a match race between Swaps and Nashua, Swaps was considered the
faster horse out of the gate. But Eddie Arcaro, aboard Nashua,
got the jump on Willie Shoemaker aboard Swaps and, like Seabiscuit,
won the duel.
Hillenbrand quotes Woolf saying after the race, "I saw something
in the Admiral's eye that was pitiful. He looked all broken up.
I don't think he will be good for another race. Horses, mister,
can have crushed hearts just like human." Hillenbrand does
not reveal, however, that 11 days later War Admiral won the Rhode
Island Handicap under high weight at Narragansett race track.
Hillenbrand, who did painstaking research digging up information
about the Seabiscuit people, is so much the purist that she ignores
the engine that makes racing go round: betting. For all the verbiage
expended on the great match race, she does not reveal that Seabiscuit
paid $6.40 for beating War Admiral, that War Admiral went off
the favorirte at 2 ½ to 5 odds. She is naïve when
she says at one point that "45,000 rowdy fans packed the
track (Santa Anita) to see" Seabiscuit. People may love
race horses, but they come out essentially to bet on them.
The book, shrewdly marketed during the Triple Crown series of
races, has topped the best-seller list because it has appealed
to a greater audience than horse racing fans. Essentially, the
less one knows about horse racing, the less one will question
Hillenbrand's fanciful interpretations and thereby enjoy the
book more.
The glory of Seabiscuit is that he had a long career, came back
from injury many times and set many records. Hillenbrand constructs
the story to set up the Santa Anita Handicap, the first $100,000
race, as the centerpiece of the tale. She makes it seem like
the most important horse race in the world and builds to a dramatic
climax when Seabiscuit at the seasoned age of 7 wins the Santa
Anita Handicap in his third try. It is his last race and a glorious
one.
In his six-year racing careeer Seabiscuit ran 89 times, won 33
races, finished second 15 times and third 13 times. He freqently
carried high weight and set two track records under 133 pounds.
A horse just as popular in the east who came along a few years
later was Stymie, a onetime $1,500 claiming horse who ran 131
times, won 35 races and, like Seabiscuit, was the leading money
winner of all time until somebody else came along to eclipse
his earnings.
Seabiscuit was owned by the Californian car dealer, Charles S.
Howard and probably was the most popular horse ever in the west.
He was, regrettably, the subject of what may have been one of
the worst movies ever made, "The Story of Seabiscuit,"
with a fawning adult Shirley Temple. The movie, made in 1949,
had no relation to Seabiscuit's actual life, but it has one redeeming
feature: actual clips of several of Seabiscuit's races.
© 2001 by Stan Isaacs. The racehorse image is from IMSI's Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
You can comment on this column or contact Stan Isaacs with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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