Seabiscuit

This chapter describes Seabiscuit’s preparation for the 1938 Santa Anita Handicap. Hillenbrand begins the tale in early December, at a race that didn’t involve Seabiscuit at all. Red Pollard was riding Seabiscuit’s stablemate Exhibit when, mid-race, the horse bolted sharply inward for some reason. It threw both man and horse off their stride and into the path of another horse, whose rider pulled the reins hard to avoid a collision. 

Afterward, the race stewards disqualified Exhibit and met to decide what, if any, punishment would come to Pollard. The usual result of such an infraction was a couple days’ suspension, just to ensure jockeys didn’t pull any such tricks on purpose. Instead, the punishment was harsh for some reason: they suspended him for the rest of the meeting at that track and asked state officials to consider suspending him through the end of December. Howard was furious, and when the state indeed issued the month-long suspension, he canceled all of Seabiscuit’s races until the New Year’s Handicap on January 1. 

When that rolled around, Seabiscuit was assigned a 132-pound weight, above Howard’s limit of 130, so he was scratched from the race. The same thing happened in the next race, leaving only two races on Seabiscuit’s schedule to prepare for the hundred-grander. The night before the San Carlos Handicap in mid-February, it rained hard. Again, Howard opted to pull Seabiscuit from the race. His horse Fair Knightess was better in the rain, so he let her run and since Pollard was now free, he rode her. The two were involved in a terrible crash when another horse misstepped, causing a bottleneck. Fair Knightess somersaulted and Pollard went over the front, with the horse landing on him. 

Pollard was rushed to the hospital and treated for multiple broken bones and internal injuries. The left side of his chest was crushed, and for three days his life hung in the balance. When he finally stabilized, doctors told him to expect to be sidelined from racing for a year at minimum. Pollard was like a son to Howard, and the latter wanted to cancel Seabiscuit’s appearance at the hundred-grander. Pollard talked him out of it, insisting that Seabiscuit run without him. He suggested that his old friend George Woolf replace him, but Woolf was already contracted to someone else. While Smith kept Seabiscuit in shape with workouts, the search for a jockey began. Howard settled on Sonny Workman, who Smith didn’t trust because he was from the East Coast. He was hired for the last preparation race on February 26; if he did well, the implication was, he would get the assignment for the Santa Anita Handicap as well. 

Workman consulted with Pollard in the hospital to learn all he could about Seabiscuit beforehand. Pollard told him explicitly not to use the whip. Hillenbrand writes that he always used it twice, lightly—to spur Seabiscuit on at crucial moments—and that he probably assumed that Workman would use it too liberally and upset the horse. Later, Smith told Workman exactly when and where to use the whip, unaware of Pollard’s instructions. This turned out to be critical to the race. Seabiscuit got a late jump and was immediately bumped by another horse, slowing him further. But he steadily moved up until only two horses were ahead of him. Down the homestretch, it was just Seabiscuit and Aneroid, an old rival. Smith could see that Seabiscuit was up to his old trick of toying with his competitor, just staying even and waiting for the signal to push ahead. Workman never used the whip and Seabiscuit lost in a close finish.

Smith was livid and wanted Workman replaced for the hundred-grander, saying “Seabiscuit will win the Santa Anita Handicap. He is the best horse. He is fit and he is ready. All I want is a jockey who will obey my orders” (169). Howard wanted to keep Workman, but Smith refused to budge. Then George Woolf unexpectedly got out of his previous contract for the hundred-grander and Howard signed him on.

It rained the week before the Santa Anita Handicap, finally stopping on Friday morning. The track had pools everywhere, and the machines were sent out to try to dry it up. Seabiscuit unluckily drew a starting position far to the outside and was assigned a weight of 130 pounds. Smith and Woolf focused on Stagehand as the main competitor. To allow training staff to adequately prepare, the weights were assigned well in advance, in December, and Stagehand had been given only 100 pounds based on his performances up to that time. Since then, he had made a splash, winning four races and becoming the early favorite to win the Kentucky Derby. Based on this, his impost should have been a good deal higher, but there was nothing to be done. 

Pollard, accompanied by medical staff, was driven to the track the day of the race and brought up in a wheelchair to watch the race. Like in the previous race, Seabiscuit got off to a poor start. Another horse hung on his right side and leaned in, blocking his way forward. Woolf resorted to angrily whipping the horse’s jockey to get him to move, then trained his sights on Stagehand up ahead. The brother of Stagehand, Sceneshifter, was also racing. They looked nearly identical and wore the same racing colors, so it had been decided earlier that Stagehand’s jockey would wear a white cap and Sceneshifter’s a red one. A white cap is what Woolf saw at the front of the pack.

Seabiscuit was in twelfth position due to his terrible start. Spotting an opening in the backstretch, Woolf had to make a split-second decision. If he waited much longer, he might fall too far behind Stagehand to catch up; if he used up too much of Seabiscuit’s energy now, the horse might falter at the end. He decided to go for it. Hillenbrand writes that “[p]ent up from trailing the field, Seabiscuit spun through the gap like a bullet rifling down a barrel” (178). He caught and passed Stagehand; only Aneroid was left ahead. At the far turn, Seabiscuit took the lead. 

Then Woolf felt a horse on the outside, moving up. He looked back twice, the second time to confirm what he noticed in the first glance: it was Stagehand, but his jockey wore a red cap. He realized that the two jockeys had switched caps in an effort to fool him. He had spent Seabiscuit’s energy chasing down the wrong horse, and now the stronger of the two siblings was charging at him. Hillenbrand explains that a general rule of thumb is that horses can maintain their top speed for, at most, three-eighths of a mile. Seabiscuit had kept a world-record pace for much of the race, but he didn’t wilt. Stagehand’s trainer and jockey both thought the race was over at that point, but Seabiscuit held on, the two horses running neck and neck for the finish line. In a photo finish, Stagehand won by a nose.