Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Howard began to see the merits of the race. For one, a sizable purse could get Seabiscuit that much closer to Sun Beau’s money-winning mark; he was still $85,000 short. In addition, Smith might enjoy pitting his horse against one trained by his son, Jimmy, just as Howard would enjoy facing off against Lin. And Lin wouldn’t let up on the needling. Howard gave in.

Lin wanted to make it interesting. He dared his father to make a side bet with him.³ Howard shook him off. He told him he couldn’t bear to take any more money from his own son.

Crosby hustled off to make the arrangements. He returned with a fair deal. Del Mar would put up a winner- take-all purse of $25,000, 14 percent of the entire purse budget for the track’s meeting. Seabiscuit would carry 130 pounds, Ligaroti 115. The race, slated for August 12, would be run over a mile and an eighth. Woolf would ride Seabiscuit, Spec Richardson would ride Ligaroti. Charles and Lin flipped a coin to determine post position. Charles won the toss and picked the rail.

At Del Mar the reporters followed Smith everywhere, but all they got out of him was a gusty “Ugh!”⁴ Unable to catch Seabiscuit working, the newsmen took a page from the Wise We Boys and staked out tactical positions around the track. Smith somehow evaded them. Someone wondered aloud if Seabiscuit was working “camouflaged as a diesel tractor.”⁵ In the afternoon, racegoers streamed past Seabiscuit’s stall. “It looked like a parade,” Smith growled. When the races were on, Seabiscuit could see the fields go down the backstretch and would try to climb out of his stall to run with them. Smith had had enough and secreted the horse away to a new stall. The press couldn’t find it.

In the week before the race, Howard took an unusual phone call. The caller was a track official, who told him that a New York bettor had sent $5,000 to wager on Ligaroti, challenging Howard to put up $15,000 against it. Howard was surely amazed at such a huge wager from a complete stranger, but he was not one to back down from a challenge. It took him a while to learn that he had been suckered. The mysterious “New York bettor” was in fact Lin, who had talked the track official into placing the call.

Meanwhile, Lin and Crosby were hard at work putting on a horse race Hollywood-style.⁶ Crosby arranged to have a large section of the clubhouse roped off and patrolled by guards, with admission restricted to Ligaroti rooters—the “I’m for Ligaroti” section. He went out on a promotional tour to gather a cast of thousands, contacting four hundred friends, mostly movie people, and talking them into coming to the track to cheer his horse on. He appointed Dave Butler, director of Shirley Temple films, head cheerleader, fitting him with a turtleneck emblazoned with the initials BL, for Binglin. He had four hundred Ligaroti pennants printed up in the horse’s colors, cerise and white polka dots, and attached to canes for waving. Turf scribe Jack McDonald surveyed the production and wondered if the net effect would be to inspire Ligaroti or scare him to death.⁷

Crosby flooded the region with publicity. All over town, posters went up that read:

DEL MAR

AUGUST 12, 1938

SEABISCUIT VS. LIGAROTI

———

CHARLES HOWARD

VS. BING CROSBY

FATHER VS. SON

THE ICEMAN WOOLF

VS. SPEC RICHARDSON

AMERICA VS. ARGENTINA

———

ONE OF THE

GREATEST MATCH RACES

OF ALL TIME

From the race’s conception, the press viewed it with skepticism. Sportswriters argued that the rich event was a farce arranged to pad Seabiscuit’s bankroll. Del Mar, conscious of the potential conflict of interest for the Howards and Smiths, barred public wagering on the race. But the press’s distrust and the absence of gambling did nothing to cool the enthusiasm of racing fans. On the sweltering race day, special trains and buses poured in from San Diego and Los Angeles, filling the track with well over twenty thousand people, many more than the track’s official capacity. Lin plastered a twenty-foot LIGAROTI sign on the wall behind the “I’m for Ligaroti” section, and scores of Crosby’s movie friends, including Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Spencer Tracy and Ray Milland, took up their cerise and white pennants and filed in. “Is there anyone left in Hollywood?” wondered a spectator. Dave Butler led a chorus of Ligaroti cheers, and the crowd grew boisterous.

Crosby perched on the roof with Oscar Otis, who would call the race for a national radio broadcast. In the jockeys’ room, Woolf suited up to man the helm on Seabiscuit while Richardson slipped on Ligaroti’s polka dots. Just before the race, Woolf and Richardson made a deal. No matter who won, they would “save,” or split, the purse between them.

———

It began as an exhilarating display of pure speed. To a gleeful shriek from the crowd, Seabiscuit and Ligaroti ripped out of the gate side by side. There was no clever strategy in either camp; each rider wanted the lead immediately. It was Seabiscuit who got it, tearing toward the first turn with his head in front. He couldn’t shake Ligaroti off. They rounded the first turn and barreled into the backstretch locked together. Inch by inch, Ligaroti edged closer, then thrust his nose in front. A few strides later, Seabiscuit edged back to the lead again. After six furlongs, they were one-fifth of a second below the track record. The mile marker clipped by, and the tote board flashed the fraction: 1:36?. They had run two seconds faster than the track record.

They couldn’t, it seemed, keep up such a pace. With the crowd leaping and yelling, the two horses skimmed the far turn and straightened away for the run for the wire. Richardson was playing every card he had, hollering in Woolf’s ear to try to distract him or provoke him into fouling himself out of the race.

With an eighth of a mile to go, Richardson felt Ligaroti beginning to weaken. The colt sagged inward, muscling his shoulder and hip into the smaller Seabiscuit. Hemmed in between Ligaroti and the rail, Seabiscuit had nowhere to go. He was driven to the left and for an awful moment nearly tumbled over the rail. He straightened himself out, grimly stood his ground, and held his head in front. Richardson kept right on yelling.

Seabiscuit had Ligaroti beaten. Richardson knew it. Desperate, the jockey resorted to an old bush-league