The grim procession filed past the grandstand. The shocked fans watched him go.
At the Howard barn, there was shouting and running.20 Grooms dashed everywhere, rushing for ice, Epsom salts, and liniment. Seabiscuit was led up and halted. A groom dipped bandages in ice water laced with Epsom salts and wound them around the left foreleg. The Howards stood and watched, their faces fallen. Behind them, horsemen gathered in silent attendance. A groom walked Seabiscuit around and around the barn. The horse had run a mile at nearly a world-record clip, and injured or not, he had to be cooled out. Seabiscuit’s head continued to nod. Periodically, the groom stopped him and poured ice water inside his leg bandage while the horse slurped water from a bucket standing on a bench. Howard walked up and looked the leg over. “He never deserved such hard luck,” he said.
Marcela stood nearby. “The Handicap doesn’t matter,” she said. “He’s got to be all right.”
“Remember,” Smith told Howard, “he went lame at Belmont.”
“Yes,” Howard responded, “but I never saw him pull up that way. Never before.”
Smith had no response. A mournful hush fell over the barn, broken only by the long, low moans of a saddle pony who missed his absent stable companion. All evening long, the deep, sad sound drifted out from the shed rows.
When Seabiscuit had cooled out, Smith went over the leg. There was no disturbed hair, no broken skin. They led him back into his stall. He had stopped limping. A veterinarian went in the stall with him, and a ring of stable hands watched from the door while he worked. The veterinarian examined the leg, then painted it in liniment, packed it in mud, and wrapped it loosely in fresh bandages soaked in ice water. He emerged to the forlorn collection of grooms but offered no verdict. He said the injury needed time to declare itself. It could be as bad as a broken bone or a blown suspensory ligament.21 Or it could be as minor as a kick bruise. Whatever it was, the vet thought Smith was wrong. It was in the knee, he said, not the ankle.
Howard and Smith spent the night on their knees in Seabiscuit’s stall, taking turns pouring ice water onto the horse’s leg. Sometime in the night Seabiscuit folded up and sank down beside them. He drifted off to sleep, his legs stretched straight out. They kept working while he slept.
When Seabiscuit’s eyes opened in the morning, Howard and Smith were still there. The horse raised his head and rolled his weight onto his chest, preparing to stand. Howard and Smith held their breath. Seabiscuit pulled his haunches up under him, straightened his forelegs, and pushed. In a moment Seabiscuit was up. He stood normally on the bad leg and dove into his feed bucket. Then he lowered his head to snatch hay off the floor of his stall. It was his habit to lean onto his left leg when he did so, letting his right knee bend so he could get his mouth to the floor. They watched as he dropped his nose. His right knee bent, just as it always had, and he leaned to the left, onto the bad leg. Howard and Smith exhaled.
They led him out into the shed row and eased him into the walking ring. A crowd gathered to see him walk. Looping in big circles, the horse didn’t take a lame step. Then Smith asked him to turn sharply left, a trick he had learned to test the suspensory ligaments. The horse bobbled. Smith was right: It was the ankle, not the knee. The veterinarian took radiographs, which would take a while to develop. All they could do now was wait. The Howards spent their time sorting through myriad sympathy notes from fans, some of whom enclosed bottles of remedies for the horse. The X rays came back. There was no fracture. The injury was in the suspensory ligament. Maybe it was ruptured; maybe it was only bruised. The veterinarian said that if it was ruptured, the horse’s career was over. Time would tell.
Days passed, and Seabiscuit improved dramatically. Smith walked him every day and studied his gait. The horse had no trace of lameness at the walk, not even when Smith turned him sharply. After three days there was no sign that he had been hurt at all. A few days later Smith took him out for a long, slow, riderless trip around the track, leading him from Pumpkin’s back. Several hundred spectators came to see it. Howard stood by the rail and watched through binoculars. Again, the horse seemed perfectly sound and cooled out well. Smith began inching him back into work, giving him easy gallops. It appeared that he had only stung the leg, not incurred a deeper injury. Seabiscuit, they declared, was going to make the hundred-grander.
Meanwhile, the stable got a little insurance. Kayak won the San Carlos Handicap, nailing Specify at the wire and breaking the track record. And a curious dispatch came in from the San Francisco World’s Fair. Fair promoters wanted Seabiscuit to be an exhibit. They offered to build a special paddock and walking ring and give Howard a handsome cut of the 50-cent viewing fee they would charge spectators. Howard declined, citing a most unlikely reason: “We do not care to commercialize Seabiscuit.”
On February 23 Smith took Seabiscuit back to the track to continue his preparation. The horse sped over the track, level and even. Then there was a bobble. The rider abruptly stood up and threw his weight against the reins. The head nodded again. Smith and Howard didn’t need to say much to each other. They both knew.
Seabiscuit’s suspensory ligament was ruptured. Howard, his shoulders sagging with disappointment, stood at the clubhouse rail and told reporters that they weren’t going to make it.
Smith pulled himself together and went on. He moved the special safety door from Seabiscuit’s stall to Kayak’s. Howard brought a man to the barn to make plaster casts of Seabiscuit’s hooves for the production of souvenir ashtrays. The horse stood there calmly for an hour and a half as the man fooled with his feet. Howard stood by and watched. Neither he nor Marcela could muster any enthusiasm for the hundred-grander.
A week later it was Kayak, not Seabiscuit, whom Smith escorted to the track for the Santa Anita Handicap. Reporters queried him on his chances without Seabiscuit. “Watch my smoke,” he said. On the way out, he stopped briefly before Seabiscuit’s stall. Outside, a grandstand swollen with spectators awaited him. Several million people were tuned in to the radio broadcast. Buenos Aires was at a standstill: Kayak was Argentine.22 In the midst of the crowd at Santa Anita sat Charles and Marcela Howard, forced smiles papered over their faces.
A few minutes later Kayak cannonballed down the homestretch to win the 1939 Santa Anita Handicap. Marcela and Charles broke into tears. Someone asked Charles for a comment. “Oh, gosh, it was grand—” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He turned his back and hid his face among his closest friends, who ringed around him. “Kayak II is a good horse,” he whispered. “But gee, it wasn’t Seabiscuit …”23
After the ceremonies, the Howards hurried from the track. That night they attended the Turf Club Ball. As always, Howard tried to get Smith to come, but the trainer never showed up. Santa Anita officials presented Howard with the traditional golden winner’s trophy, then gave him a cup commemorating Seabiscuit.
“I am extremely proud of the horse,” Howard said of Kayak, “but I can’t help saying I would have been happier had Seabiscuit been the winner.”
The Howards returned home. Marcela felt hollow.24
