Argentine colt was going to be a hundred-grander horse. As he had done with Seabiscuit in 1936, Smith entered the horse in the Handicap, but was careful not to show the racing secretary too much, running him just eight times, always in middling undercard races, six of which he won.14 Kayak improved rapidly. By the time they got to South Carolina, Kayak and Seabiscuit were waging bitter morning workout battles. Seabiscuit was always faster, but no horse, not even Fair Knightess, had proven so worthy a sparring partner.
Smith’s plan to keep Kayak’s speed a secret worked. The horse drew just 110 for the Handicap. With the weights out, Smith had no reason to hide him any longer. Kayak roared into Santa Anita with guns blazing, staging an overpowering performance to win a handicap prep race, just missing a track record, running with ears up, tail fanned out behind him. Coming into the 1939 Santa Anita Handicap, Tom Smith was armed to the teeth.
It was time to get Seabiscuit into a prep race, but something always intervened. He was scratched out of one race because the field was gigantic, and the post position hung him out so far that he was practically starting the race from the parking lot. He was scratched a second time when the rain turned the track slick. January became February. The Handicap was in March, and time was running out.
Two weeks into February, they entered him in the one-mile Los Angeles Handicap. Their luck held: On race day, the sky came up sunny and the field small. Smith spent the day sitting under the slope of the shed row roof. He was accustomed to the giddy ripples of fear that attended race days, but today they had a darker feel. Waves of uneasiness washed over him. Perhaps, he thought, he was giving too much work to an aging animal. The idea tugged at his head all afternoon. By the time he heard the rhythmic, rising chant of Joe Hernandez’s voice as he called the undercard races, Smith had begun contemplating scratching the horse once again.15
Out on the track, the racing secretary was surveying the crowd and worrying. Twenty thousand fans milled around the grandstand. Another scratch would be a disaster. Climbing up to the boxes, the secretary found Howard and told him that the horse’s fans mustn’t be disappointed for a third time. A few minutes later, Howard appeared at Barn 38. He and Smith talked about whether or not to run Seabiscuit, and Howard stressed that he didn’t want to ruin another day for Santa Anita and the horse’s fans. Smith could offer no concrete reason to scratch. He swallowed his trepidation and opted to run.
Smith led Seabiscuit to the track. Woolf met him in the paddock, and Smith gave him a leg up. The Iceman leaned down from the saddle and bent his head toward Howard. “We’ll set up a track record for you today, Mr. Howard,” he said.
Woolf broke Seabiscuit smartly, rushing to the lead. On his outside, Today, his old rival from 1938, hooked up with him. Down the backstretch the two horses flew, noses together. The duel stretched on: an eighth, a quarter, a half. The fractions clipped off. Woolf was going to be good to his word. The track record was coming down.
Countless times on that long Santa Anita backstretch Seabiscuit’s legs reached out over the track, stretching to gather up the ground, pounding down into the dirt, then folding up under his belly. With every stride, some two thousand pounds of force came down on the bones and soft tissues of each foreleg.16 Today and Seabiscuit, still moving at record pace, leaned together into the far turn. Seabiscuit switched lead legs, so that his left foreleg was bearing the greatest weight. With each stride, he pivoted on the leg, holding the line of the turn at close to forty miles per hour. Woolf had no idea that beneath him, something was about to go wrong.
Halfway around the turn, Today began inching away. Seabiscuit was fighting hard but slipping back. Today pushed a full length in front, then shifted down to the rail. Woolf angled Seabiscuit out to go around Today and gave him a whack with his whip. Seabiscuit surged forward, coming down heavily onto his left foreleg.17
Woolf heard a sharp
Seabiscuit took an awkward, skipping step. His head pitched downward. Woolf threw his weight back, snatched up the reins, and held Seabiscuit’s head up as the horse swung his legs forward and caught himself. The horse pulled himself together and resumed running. Woolf held still for several strides, feeling for lameness, but detected nothing. Perhaps, had Pollard been on him, he would have felt the slight catch in the rhythm, like a playing card clicking against the spokes of a bicycle wheel. But Seabiscuit’s stride was hard to read. Woolf felt nothing wrong. He thought Seabiscuit had simply stumbled over a rough part of the track.
Woolf backed off. He would catch Today in the stretch. He banked into the homestretch, swung out to go around Today, and made the biggest mistake of his career. He reached back and struck Seabiscuit across the hip with the whip.
Seabiscuit accelerated, and something gave under him. Woolf could feel it now, the jar in the stride:
Seabiscuit reeled down the track. Woolf wanted to get his weight off of his mount’s back, but he was going too fast. If he jumped off now, Seabiscuit, obedient to equine instinct to flee pain, would probably tear over the track, exacerbating his injury. Woolf had to control the horse’s deceleration. He leaned against the reins. By the time he reached the turn, he had slowed the horse enough to bail out. Woolf kicked off his stirrups, leaned his weight on his hands, swung his right leg over Seabiscuit’s rump, and pushed himself into the air. He hit the ground running and hauled the reins back, dragging the horse to a halt.
He looked down at the leg. There was no blood, and the limb appeared structurally normal. Woolf led Seabiscuit forward a few steps. The horse’s head nodded, his left foreleg hovering in the air. An outrider, a mounted attendant assigned to catch loose horses and assist injured ones, galloped up and grabbed Seabiscuit’s bridle. Slowly, gently, the outrider led Seabiscuit back toward the stands. Woolf walked back alone.
Up in the clubhouse, Smith and Howard were running. Smith was ahead, slamming into people and shoving them out of the way. Howard followed him. They crossed onto the track and sprinted toward Seabiscuit.
The outrider drew Seabiscuit up before Smith. Seabiscuit held the leg up. Smith bent over it. Woolf stood and stared at his mount. His lips were white. Howard rushed up, looked at Seabiscuit, and then wheeled on Woolf. He was near panic.
“Why did you do it?” he shouted.19 “George,
Woolf said something about having believed that the horse had simply stumbled. He said he had had no idea that the horse was injured. He watched them tend to Seabiscuit, then walked back to the jockeys’ room and sat down, heartsick. He called trainer Whitey Whitehill in, asked permission to be taken off his last mount.
A horse ambulance sped up. Smith straightened and waved it away. He needed to see Seabiscuit’s gait. Howard held the reins while a groom threw a blanket over his back. They started walking the horse toward the barns. His head nodded with every step. Howard fell in beside him. Smith dropped far behind, frowning and dipping his head to study his horse’s stride. He could see that it was the ankle that had gone wrong.
