Seabiscuit: An American Legend

I'm guessing you know the story. A knobby little cow pony of a horse, son of the bad-tempered Hard Tack, goes from losing races and being entirely unloved to Horse of the Year in 1938, gets injured in 1939, and makes a comeback to win a $100,000 race in 1940.

Meanwhile, his jockey makes the same journey.

Meanwhile, his owner finds joy after great loss.

Meanwhile, his trainer gains appreciation and respect.

Once I started this book, written by Laura Hillenbrand, I couldn't put it down. I love horses, and I'm interested in racing (not just because my horses used to race, though they raced with sulkies), but there's something more to my appreciation than that. It's well written, of course, and the races are alive and practically pulsing off the page, but yet there is something more. Maybe it's Hillenbrand's respect for each person in the book, from Seabiscuit's old rival War Admiral to the jockey who only rode him once.

Maybe it's just the terrific struggle to survive and thrive captured in each character, the real depiction of real life that makes this book so compelling.

Then again, maybe not.

But this book has something to it.

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The horses strained onward, arcing around the far turn and rushing at the crowd. 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 that the moment Fitzsimmons had spoken of was near. One horse was going to crack.


As forty thousand voices shouted them on, War Admiral found something more. He thrust his head in front.


Woolf glanced at War Admiral's beautiful head, sweeping through the air like a sickle. He could see the depth of the colt's effort in his large amber eye, rimmed in crimson and white. "His eye was rolling in its socket as if the horse was in agony," Woolf later recalled.


An instant later, Woolf felt a subtle hesitation in his opponent, a wavering. He looked at War Admiral again. The colt's tongue shot out the side of his mouth. Seabiscuit had broken him.


Woolf dropped low over the saddle and called into Seabiscuit's ear, asking him for everything he had. Seabiscuit gave it to him. War Admiral tried to answer, clinging to Seabiscuit for a few strides, but it was no use. He slid from Seabiscuit's side as if gravity were pulling him backward. Seabiscuit's ears flipped up. Woolf made a small motion with his hand.


"So long, Charley." He had coined a phrase that jockeys would use for decades.


(p. 273)