Seabiscuit: An American Legend

For the next month America hung in midair. The names War Admiral and Seabiscuit were on everyone’s lips, stories on the horses were in every paper, and the inflamed division between the horses’ supporters broadened and deepened into a fanatical contest of East versus West. One reader became so furious when journalist Nelson Dunstan switched his allegiance from Seabiscuit to War Admiral that he threatened to attack him. “Everybody,” Vanderbilt recalled, “cared about it.” Even President Roosevelt was swept up in the fervor. A rumor that he was going to “denounce one of the horses” during a Fireside Chat made the rounds, but he kept his allegiances secret. “The whole country is divided into two camps,” wrote Dave Boone in the San Francisco Chronicle. “People who never saw a horse race in their lives are taking sides. If the issue were deferred another week, there would be a civil war between the War Admiral Americans and the Seabiscuit Americans.”¹⁸

As October waned, the tension all over the backstretch heightened. Trainer Conway was a frayed wire, shouting at reporters to get the hell away from his horse. Vanderbilt, also wound up with stress, blew off steam in bruising morning football games with the exercise boys. Smith’s perpetual frown deepened. He distracted himself by working hard with Kayak, and sent him out to win two more races. Charley Kurtsinger tried to soothe his wife, who was terrified for him. Charley had only recently gotten out of the hospital after crashing with a horse at Saratoga in August, and his wife was now so afraid for him that she couldn’t bear to be at the track when he rode. The closest she could get to watching him was to sit in the track parking lot in their car. Charley promised her that if she came to the track to see him ride War Admiral, he’d win it for her.¹⁹

Charles and Marcela Howard were similarly jittery. Marcela slept with prayer beads on her pillow every night and attended Mass every morning. She and Charles hovered by the barns, waiting. They were there one afternoon a few days before the race when a sharp rainstorm brushed over the racing oval. Charles and Marcela stood together, watching the lightning crackle over the Maryland countryside. The storm died out and dispersed, and sunlight broke over the track. Marcela found it comforting. She whispered a poem:

“The storm is past, no more repining

²⁰

Behold! the gentle sun is shining”

“Yeah,” muttered Charles, “but the track is still too heavy for Seabiscuit.”

In the track offices, horsemen gathered for the post position draw. Both horses’ handlers wanted the rail, which, if the horse could hold it, would ensure the shortest trip around the track. If Seabiscuit got the rail, the experts believed he might have a glimmer of a chance. If War Admiral got it, they believed the race would be over before it began.

War Admiral drew the rail.

For Pollard, the days were bittersweet. David Alexander spent time with him and found him in jovial spirits. He was in love, he was about to try to start walking again, and he had been told that by early November he could leave the hospital. His engagement had brought his optimism back, and he was sure he would be able to ride again. A glance at his emaciated body, jutting out at harsh angles from under the sheets, testified to the contrary. He was up to his old pranks, sending a group of frostbitten horsemen on a wild-goose chase all over Boston in search of nonexistent “bull’s wool” socks.²¹ Alexander couldn’t get him to be serious. “George,” Pollard told him, “will probably mess everything up as usual and try to get beaten a nose, but even George isn’t bad enough to beat Seabiscuit in this one.”²²

But as he spoke, the pain of his situation pressed through to the surface. “Maybe I’m conceited and maybe I’m not, but there still isn’t anybody that can ride him like I can ride him,” he said. “I can’t tell you why. I just know how and he wants to run for me. I know that the minute I throw a leg over him, morning or afternoon. It looked for a while like I’d come out of here with a set of crutches as permanent equipment. Even if I’d have to use crutches, I still could have ridden the Biscuit.²³ Maybe I couldn’t ride any other horse, but I could have ridden him as long as there was somebody to shove me in the saddle.”

Before Alexander and Pollard parted, the redhead gave him a prediction. Seabiscuit, he said, was going to win by four.²⁴

The War Admiral camp remained supremely confident. Conway quietly built his colt’s endurance. Every day, he lingered by the rails to watch Seabiscuit’s peculiar regimens, following his movements without comment, then returned to War Admiral. Everyone in the Riddle barn knew Smith was trying to coax early speed from Seabiscuit, but the idea of a horse outbreaking War Admiral was unimaginable. “I don’t think Seabiscuit will give him much trouble,” jockey Kurtsinger said. “And I don’t care if Woolf elects to try to make a race of it. The Admiral will lick him any part of it.”

The Howard barn preferred that their opponents keep thinking that way. They remained cryptic about strategy.²⁵ Smith did little more than make a few grunts about Seabiscuit having good speed. Asked if War Admiral would set the pace, Marcela was coy. “That depends on whether or not he can outrun Seabiscuit in the first furlongs,” she said. “Maybe he can’t.” Pollard went right ahead and lied to reporters, telling them the barn strategy was to concede the lead to War Admiral and then try to run him down in the homestretch. After listening to Woolf and Pollard discussing strategy, David Alexander asked them if he could state in print that Seabiscuit would outgun War Admiral for the early lead. Both said yes, providing that Alexander didn’t quote them directly. “Both fully realized,” Alexander wrote later, “that War Admiral’s connections would pay no attention at all to the pipe dream of a mere newspaper columnist.” So Alexander published the prediction. All it did was inspire a hearty laugh in the press box.

The laughter burned Howard. On the day before the race, with all the training done, there seemed no harm in letting people know what he thought. Sitting in the Pimlico clubhouse surrounded by reporters, Howard made a flat statement.

“War Admiral won’t outbreak Seabiscuit,” he said tersely, “he won’t outgame him, and he won’t beat him.”²⁶

An uncomfortable silence followed. Someone politely changed the subject.

Sometime later that day, Woolf received a telegram. It was from Pollard: THERE IS ONE SURE WAY OF WINNING WITH THE BISCUIT. YOU RIDE WAR ADMIRAL.²⁷

Across the country that day, the ballots for year-end honors in Thoroughbred racing began arriving in journalists’ postboxes. The writers collected them, leaving the spaces for Horse of the Year blank. They would wait until Tuesday evening to fill them in.

That night, Baltimore glittered and rang with exuberant prerace parties, the next day’s racegoers singing out “Maryland, My Maryland” as they passed outside the track. Inside the Pimlico gates, it was hushed. A lone figure walked out onto the Pimlico dirt, clutching a flashlight. It was Woolf. The rainwater had not fully drained from the track, and he was concerned that Seabiscuit might struggle over the dampness. “Biscuit likes to hear his feet rattle”