form some thirty-five feet behind, still struggling to catch him. He had been wrong about War Admiral; he was game. Woolf felt a stab of empathy. “I saw something in the Admiral’s eyes that was pitiful,” he would say later. “He looked all broken up.26 I don’t think he will be good for another race. Horses, mister, can have crushed hearts just like humans.”
The Iceman straightened out and rode for the wire, his face down. Seabiscuit sailed into history four lengths in front, running easy.
Behind him, pandemonium ensued. Seabiscuit’s wake seemed to create an irresistible vacuum, sucking the fans in behind him. Thousands of men, women, and children vaulted over the rails, poured onto the track, and began running after him.28 Police dashed over the track, but the fans simply ran past them, leaping and clapping. Ahead of them all, Woolf stood like a titan in the irons. He cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted something back at Kurtsinger.27 His words were lost in the cheering.
Up in the Howard box, Marcela’s eyes opened and filled with tears. Howard, completely overcome, stood up and whooped. They smiled and bowed as hundreds of voices called out to them.
In his box nearby, Samuel Riddle lowered his binoculars, turned to the Howards, and smiled weakly. His eyes were wide and shining with the shock of it. He hurried from his box. “It was a good race,” he said.29 The crowd solemnly cleared a path for him. One or two people put a hand on his shoulder as he passed.
Marcela sank back down, disconcerted. Howard wanted to take her to the winner’s circle, but she decided to stay where she was. Tears were streaming down her face. She sat, drying her eyes with a handkerchief and laughing at herself. Howard burst out of the box and sprinted downstairs as fast as he could go, babbling and shaking hands with everyone he saw. He dashed onto the track and immediately disappeared in the swirling masses of revelers. Smith and Vanderbilt joined him, and the three of them fought to stay on their feet as reporters and fans pushed and pulled on them. Howard, unable to control his jubilation, jumped up and down with the fans. Police ran every which way.
The final race time lit up the tote board. A second roar erupted from the crowd. Seabiscuit had run the mile and three sixteenths in 1:56 ?. No horse in Pimlico’s fabled and lengthy history, through thousands of races dating back to just after the Civil War, had ever run the distance so fast.
Woolf turned Seabiscuit and cantered him back into the mob. He was wrung out, “all in for breath,” said McCarthy, “and he’s almost as white as the sleeves of his jacket.” Woolf pulled Seabiscuit up to the grandstand, and the crowd enveloped them, shouting, “Georgie! Georgie!” McCarthy shoved his way up to the horse and propped a microphone on Seabiscuit’s withers. Woolf bent to it.
“I wish my old pal Red had been on him instead of me,” he said in his easy drawl.30 “See ya, Red.”
Hundreds of hands touched Woolf’s legs and stroked Seabiscuit’s coat. The horse stood quietly in the center of the chaos, his tail in the air and his ribs heaving in and out as the waves of fans pushed up to his sides.31 Smith elbowed his way up, and someone asked him for a statement. “I said mine on the track,” the trainer said.32 The police fought their way in to them, then formed a square and drove the crowd outward, leaving Smith standing beside his horse. Pumpkin bulled in with a stable hand on his back. The police opened a narrow avenue into the winner’s circle. Smith grasped Seabiscuit’s rein and led his grand little horse down the avenue of guards. Smith kept his eyes straight ahead, chin up, his face proud and sober. He led Seabiscuit to Howard, who patted the horse’s nose and beamed.
In the winner’s circle, the police cordon gave way and the reporters and fans pressed in again, wedging Seabiscuit and his handlers into the corner. Smith lifted a blanket of yellow chrysanthemums over the horse’s neck. Unperturbed by the near riot around him, Seabiscuit began gently plucking flowers off the wreath and eating them. Howard tugged a single chrysanthemum from the blanket. The crowd begged for souvenir blossoms. Smith pulled a flower out for himself, and in a rare moment of exuberance, heaved the whole blanket into the crowd. A happy yell went up, and the flowers vanished.
Kurtsinger steered War Admiral around the celebration and pulled him up in front of the grandstand. Kurtsinger sagged in the saddle. War Admiral had run the greatest race of his life, running by far his fastest time for the distance, but he had not been good enough. Conway pushed his way through the fans and emerged in front of his colt. He examined his legs, found them sound and cool, then turned away. A reporter asked him for a statement.
“No! No!” he said. “Nothing to say.” Dazed, he disappeared into the mob.
Kurtsinger smiled bravely and slid from the saddle. He uncinched it and pulled it from War Admiral’s back, then stood and looked at his horse for a moment. He stepped forward and whispered something in the horse’s ear, then walked away.33 A groom threw a black-and-yellow blanket over War Admiral’s back. The police cleared a path for him, and War Admiral, his head low, was led back to the barn to the lonely clapping of a handful of fans. He would run in two more minor races, winning both, then go on to become one of the breed’s great sires.
Woolf slid to the ground and stood with one hand on his hip, smiling confidently, as Vanderbilt handed Howard the silver victory vase. Someone dragged Smith over to the mike, and he muttered something about credit being due to horse and rider. The final odds lit up the board, and Howard burst out laughing. The crowd applauded.
It took fifteen minutes to clear a path wide enough for Seabiscuit to get out of the winner’s circle. As Howard whirled off with the reporters, Woolf and Smith picked their way back to the jockeys’ room, trailed by well-wishers. They stopped in the doorway. Kurtsinger was already inside. “I hate to beat Kurtsinger,” Woolf said, “the cleverest jockey I ever competed against.” The reporters buzzed around him with questions about Seabiscuit. “He’s the best horse in the world,” he said. “He proved that today.”
Smith allowed himself a small smile. Woolf turned to him. “If only Red could have seen Biscuit run today,” he said.34
“Yeah,” said Smith, his smile fading. “But I kinda think the redhead was riding along with you, George.”
Woolf went into the jockeys’ room. Down the bench, Kurtsinger was pulling off his boots and quietly crying. Someone gently asked him what happened.
“What can I say? We just couldn’t make it,” he said. “The Admiral came to him and looked him in the eye, but that other horse refused to quit. We gave all we had. It just wasn’t good enough.”35
Smith went back to the barn to see his horse. He spent a few quiet moments with him, his arm thrown over his neck, the horse’s head by his chest. Woolf dressed and joined them. He stood by the stall door, watching Seabiscuit settle in. The horse felt good. He trotted around the stall, playing. Woolf thought he looked as if he hadn’t run the race yet.
The Howards packed up carloads of reporters and brought them all to their hotel room. In exactly two months,
