the infield but still found the track so packed that people could barely move. The grandstand became an undulating, endless sea of earth-tone fedoras and ladies’ spring hats. Fans lay on, stood over, and clung to every support structure, making the track appear as if it were constructed entirely of spectators.
They ran out of programs before the third race. The supply of hot dog buns, a key barometer of fan enthusiasm, was completely exhausted by early afternoon. Attendants served the dogs up on rye bread, and when that ran out, hungry fans had to hold their dogs in old newspapers and then discarded mutuel tickets. Though officials lengthened the time between races considerably, the wagering lines were so long that many bettors never caught a glimpse of a pari-mutuel window. “One unfortunate citizen,” wrote a reporter, “got in line to buy a win ticket on Patty Cake in the sixth and was considerably bewildered to find himself coming out of the melee at the end of the seventh with a hot dog.” The gridlock in the parking lot was so intractable that, even though the races ended at 6:30 P.M., it would be well into Sunday morning before everyone got out of the track.
It was all worth it. Seabiscuit buried the field, demolishing the track record by 1? seconds. The fans went wild, taking up a raucous cheer: “Bring on War Admiral! Bring on War Admiral!”
For Woolf, the win was bittersweet. It was, he believed, the last time he would ever sit astride this little horse. He slid from the saddle, pulled the wreath of flowers from around Seabiscuit’s neck, and wrapped it around his own shoulders. The Howards stood on each side of him, laughing with the crowd. Woolf didn’t smile. He paused a moment, the camera flashes flickering off his cheeks. Pollard was looking down on him from the press box.11 Woolf consigned the horse back to him. He walked back to the jockeys’ room, slipped out of the Howard silks, and hung them up.
A few days after the Bay Meadows Handicap, Seabiscuit’s train clattered to a stop at the Tanforan siding for the long trek east. Team Seabiscuit was slated to stop off in Maryland to fulfill a promise to Alfred Vanderbilt to run in Pimlico’s Dixie Handicap, then go on to meet War Admiral in New York. Grooms tramped on and off the train, loading a full car to the roof with rice-straw bedding, oats, and timothy hay. A multitude stood by to see Seabiscuit off. Howard pulled up in a long Buick packed with admirers. He stepped out with a big cake in hand and gave it to the grooms, who quickly devoured it, then said good-bye to his horse. He would follow him east later. Fans brought heaps of flowers, and a woman stepped forward and braided ribbons into Seabiscuit’s mane while he posed for the inevitable photographers. The ceremony over, Seabiscuit clopped into his railcar, stacked chest-deep in straw. Pumpkin followed. Smith climbed in with them and set up his customary cot beside Seabiscuit. The train pushed off.12 A continent away, War Admiral stood in his stall at Belmont, waiting.
As the train lurched into motion, Seabiscuit was suddenly agitated. He began circling around and around the car in distress. Unable to stop him, Smith dug up a copy of
The trainer had a dark feeling. Since the Bay Meadows Handicap he’d had a nagging sense that the horse was not quite right. Though Seabiscuit had won the race easily, running the final quarter in a blazing twenty-four seconds flat and obliterating the track record by 1? seconds, he had dragged early in the race. Woolf had needed to hustle him to keep up with the front-runners. Howard had shrugged off the slow early fractions, attributing them to the difficulty of accelerating under 133 pounds, but Smith was uneasy. It wasn’t just that the horse seemed a hair off form. The trainer was worried about match race strategy.
From his years holding Irwin’s horses for relay races and matches, Smith knew something about one-on-one races: If one horse could steal a commanding early lead, he almost always won. Clearly, superior breaking speed in a match race was almost always a trump card. Against ordinary horses, Seabiscuit had enough early speed, but War Admiral was no ordinary horse. He was one of the fastest-breaking horses racing had ever seen. Conventional racing wisdom holds that a horse’s natural running style cannot be altered. But to have any chance against War Admiral, Smith knew he was going to have to make the habitually pace-stalking Seabiscuit, who had to fight the inertia of a much blockier heavier body, into a rocket-fast breaker.
As the train snaked eastward, Smith abruptly made a change in plans. He didn’t want Seabiscuit to run in the Dixie Handicap. He needed time to prepare for the race and feel out this sense of wrongness in the horse. Howard was reluctant to break his promise to Vanderbilt, but he was not about to overrule Smith when the trainer was so certain. The itinerary was changed. Seabiscuit was going straight to Belmont to prepare for War Admiral. They could make it up to Vanderbilt later.
Rocking on his stool as the train wound over the mountains, Smith began formulating a training plan. “We’ve got to tear off that guy’s epaulets,” he said aloud, “pull the ostrich feather out of his hat and break his sword in two early or we’ll never even get close enough to the Admiral to give him the sailor’s farewell.”14
Almost no one thought he could do it.
(© BETTMANN/CORBIS)
(© BETTMANN/CORBIS)
THE WISE WE BOYS
Seabiscuit slept for most of the trip to Belmont, rising only when reporters tramped aboard the train at the stops between San Francisco and New York.1 The newsmen had learned how to buy access to their source; several of them came on board laden with carrots, which Seabiscuit fished from their pockets. “Whenever food showed,” Smith noted, “he was quick to get up.” When the human buffet cleared out of the train, down Seabiscuit would go again.
On April 26, the horse completed his 24,265th mile of career rail travel.2 He was stretched out on his side in the straw when the
Several score of newsmen were scattered among the fans, eyeing the horse critically. Long before Seabiscuit
