Seabiscuit: An American Legend

like young girls!” Some told me more than I ever imagined, like the aged horseman who described his bodice-ripping romps with the Molino Rojo girls, then asked me not to print his name “’cause my ex-wives might not like it.” Most of the time, my interviewees welcomed me into what one source called “those dear, dead days” and allowed me to linger as long as I wished.

The luxury of researching those who achieve the extraordinary is that their lives play out before many observers. I spoke with people who saw Red Pollard hitch his toboggan to his pony, tumble down under Fair Knightess, spout Shakespeare and throw fists in the jocks’ room, draw his last breaths in a nursing home built on the ruins of a track on which he once rode. I followed Woolf through the memories of friends, from a grade school classmate to a man who saw him die and sat vigil over his body on the day of his funeral. I found a groom who handled Seabiscuit for Fitzsimmons, the boys who galloped him for Smith, and several dozen witnesses to his races. I was even contacted by a nearly hundred-year-old former groom living in a telephoneless trailer in the desert, who is evidently the last person on earth who recalls the Lone Plainsman telling of his youth on the mustang ranges. The Detroit cemetery worker; the wife speaking for a husband muted by a stroke; the ancient trainer living through his last summer tethered to an oxygen tank; the clerk at a mail-order seafood company; the operator of the Seabiscuit liquor store in Hercules, California: each had something to contribute. Again and again, when I was able to check their testimony against records kept at the time, the accuracy of their statements was verified: the color of War Admiral’s blanket, the precise time of Seabiscuit’s half-mile split, a quip Red made seventy years ago. Ultimately, I gathered an almost uninterrupted memory record of the story I wished to tell from those who recall the sound, the smell, the feel of it, and who divulged secrets, such as Red’s blind eye, that finally solved mysteries more than half a century old.

The completion of this book is tinged with sadness, as several of those who helped create it didn’t live to see it in print. Among them was Sonny Greenberg. A bug boy with Red Pollard and George Woolf, Sonny was, he cheerfully admitted, a pathologically bad jockey, once steering a horse around a turn with such ineptitude that he “lost more ground than when the Indians sold Manhattan for a string of beads and a bottle of whiskey.” Sonny may not have had Woolf’s skill, but he was an astute observer of life in the Howard barn and racing in its golden era. Putting up with at least seven hours of my questions, Sonny animated life in Seabiscuit’s time—the purr of Woolf’s blue Cord roadster, the torment of reducing and the taste of jalap, the wicked, misunderstood humor of Tom Smith. Sonny, who in racetrack lingo told me that his advanced age left him “on the ‘also eligible’ list—I could draw in at any time,” drew in on May 6, 2000. It was Derby day.

On two of the most fascinating days of my career, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Jr., told me in candid detail how he masterminded one of the most spellbinding sporting events in American history, the meeting between Seabiscuit and War Admiral. Vanderbilt went on to own a magnificent gray horse named Native Dancer, who lost only one race, the Kentucky Derby, by less than a foot. Vanderbilt stayed in racing for two thirds of a century, even after macular degeneration left him unable to see his beloved runners. In November 1999, he spent the last hours of his life at the track, handing out cookies at Belmont Park. I will never forget his eloquence, his wit, and his magnanimity.

Other generous contributors who passed away before the completion of this book include the brilliant trainer Woody Stephens, who spent a couple of long afternoons telling me about his youth as a jockey; his equally accomplished archrival and friend Charlie Whittingham; Lucien Laurin, trainer of Secretariat; former jockey Sam Renick; former Turf and Sport Digest editor Raleigh Burroughs (“Honey,” he told me a few months before his death, “there is nobody else who is older than I am; I’ve got patina all over me”); and trainer Henry Clark.

The list of others whose stories fill this book is lengthy. I long ago ran out of words of gratitude for Colonel Michael C. Howard, United States Marine Corps. The great-grandson of Charles Howard and the grandson of Lin Howard, he trusted me with the treasures of his family—scrapbooks, photographs, cards, personal notes, clippings—and gave me immeasurable assistance and encouragement in reconstructing this story. From the beginning of this project to the end, Colonel Howard went to enormous effort to furnish me with the information that has given this story color and depth. His kindness and generosity will always be an inspiration to me.

I contacted Helen Luther and her husband, Tommy, one of the finest jockeys of his era and the true father of the Jockey’s Guild, in hopes of finding a little information on Red Pollard; I emerged with a lifetime of stories and a set of surrogate grandparents. Abundant thanks also go to Pollard’s daughter, writer Norah Pollard Christianson, and his sister, Edie Pollard Wilde, who entrusted me with intimate and sometimes painful details of the life of the Cougar. Wad Studley, who can talk horse with the best of them, taught me about the wilder side of Tijuana and the stranger nicknames of the racing oval. Bill Buck, who grew up with Red and George, was my greatest source on their bug boy days. Noble Threewitt, without whom Tom Smith and Charles Howard would never have met, told me about rooming in a stall with Smith in Tijuana; Noble’s wife, Beryl, shared her recollections of George. The gifted horsemen Keith Stucki and Farrell “Wild Horse” Jones thrilled me with tales of what it was like to skim over the track aboard Seabiscuit and offered an inside view of the Howard barn. Bill Nichols recreated Ridgewood, where he worked as a ranch hand. Jane Babcock Akins, daughter of Doc Babcock, told me of the day Frankie Howard died. Johnny Longden took me back to George’s school days.

I am also grateful to trainer Jimmy Jones, who survived the rampage of Tijuana’s manure mountain and the leviathan that was Ten Ton Irwin. Harold Washburn told me about Smith’s homemade bell, the match with War Admiral, and the legend of the Iceman. Joe “Mossy” Mosbacher taught me about life on the road for bug boys. Leonard Dorfman put me in the grandstand as Seabiscuit accelerated alongside Stagehand in the 1938 hundred- grander, a performance so extraordinary and heartbreaking that it brought him to tears. Ralph Theroux, Sr., gave me a glimpse of the Seabiscuit–War Admiral match race from the infield, at least the part he saw before the steeplechase fence he was standing on collapsed. Jack Shettlesworth told me what Red really said to George in their notorious 1938 NBC radio interview. Mike Griffin, disabled in a 1930s racing spill, taught me about the perils of a jockey’s life. Eddie McMullen spoke of Pollard as an older rider. George Mohr and Larry Soroka took me inside the Fitzsimmons barn. Thomas Bell, Jr., reminisced about Tom Smith and his father’s life on the racing circuit. Gerard Oberle described the day Seabiscuit was to meet War Admiral at Suffolk Downs.

Kathy Gold, R.N., of the Diabetes Wellness and Research Foundation, explained diabetes treatment in the 1930s. George Pratt, Ph.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, instructed me on the physics of the racehorse. Matthew Mackay-Smith, DVM, medical editor of EQUUS, treated me to his boundless wisdom on equine veterinary medicine. Marvin Bensman, Ph.D., University of Memphis (www.people.memphis.edu/~mbensman/welcome.html), answered my questions on the history of radio.

Thanks also to Frank Whiteley, Joe Perrato, Howard “Gelo” Hall, Betty Raines, Bill Boland, Hugh Morgan, Barbara Howard, Michelle and Charles Howard III, Warren Stute, Bart Baker, John Wilke, John Nerud, Rex Henshaw, DVM, Mike Salamy, Daniel Guiney, Bob Nanni, Richard Holland, Bobby DeStasio, Joe Dattilo, Ken Hart, J.R. Buck Perry, Jr., Buddy Abadie, Elmer L. Taylor, Achilles Zephirius Achilles (“Ace”), Dale Duspiva, Fred Dayton, Don Mankiewicz, and Art Bardine.

Many people assisted me in tracking down facts and sources. The freakishly efficient Tina Hines provided indispensable help as a research assistant, digging up documents at the Keeneland Library; Keeneland’s Cathy Schenck and Phyllis Rogers pored over their archives in search of books and photos. Chick Lang, who knows where all the bodies are buried, scoured the industry to locate interviewees. Jane Goldstein and Stuart Zanville at Santa