58 pages • 1 hour read
Laura HillenbrandSeabiscuit
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Learn Your Horse”
In this chapter, Hillenbrand explains how Smith, with Pollard’s help, got Seabiscuit into physical and mental shape to race. Ever since Howard had acquired Seabiscuit, the horse had been a terror, lunging at anyone who came nearby. He was also worn out and underweight by about 200 pounds. Smith was patient in bringing him around. One common method of calming horses was using another animal as a companion. Smith first tried a goat, but that didn’t work. Then he tried an older, experienced horse named Pumpkin, who was known for his unflappable demeanor. They hit it off, and Smith combined two stalls to make one big enough for the both of them. Along the way, a dog and a spider monkey also became pals of Seabiscuit, and this little menagerie helped calm him down.
To attend to Seabiscuit’s physical needs, Smith concocted a special ointment for his battered legs and wrapped them in a kind of cotton sheath. He also put him on a special diet. In terms of running, the horse was a disaster at first, doing the opposite of everything his rider asked of him. Smith’s answer was to “take coercion out of the equation and let the horse discover the pleasure of speed,” telling the rider to just let Seabiscuit do what he pleased (101). The horse galloped at full speed for two miles until he was exhausted; when he came to a stop, the jockey still did nothing, so he simply returned to his stall. Seabiscuit seemed to know he would no longer be forced to do what he didn’t want to do, and he stopped fighting his riders.
When Smith had Pollard ride Seabiscuit for the first time, the jockey sensed the horse’s reluctance to be given directions. He told Smith that a whip should only be used as a last resort, or else Seabiscuit would rebel. That told Smith that Pollard was the right jockey. He and other riders kept the reins loose and let the horse do as he pleased. This strategy carried over to other aspects of Seabiscuit’s training as well; for example, he was allowed to sleep as long as he wanted, and instructions were given never to disturb him until he roused himself.
Other quirks also had to be worked on. Seabiscuit favored the inner track, close to the rail, and slowed himself down when taken to the outside. This could be a problem on a wet track since the slight inward slope kept this spot from drying out as fast as the outer positions, slowing a horse down. The inside position also tended to be more tightly packed, so horses could get “trapped” without a path forward. Smith decided to use this tendency for other ends: since Seabiscuit did not like being restrained, Smith directed Pollard to guide him to the outside when he wanted to reduce the pace and the horse would naturally slow himself down. In addition, Seabiscuit hated being confined in the starting gate and would raise a fuss when led in. Smith cured this by climbing in there with him and tapping him firmly on the chest until he calmed down. Over time, this problem went away.
Finally, Seabiscuit was put on a regular schedule throughout the day so he knew what to expect and everything became habit. Both Smith and Pollard developed a rapport with him, and the horse came to trust them. As Hillenbrand writes, “Seabiscuit began to figure things out. Once he was no longer being coerced, his instincts bubbled back to the surface. His innate love of running returned” (105). In late August 1936, Seabiscuit started to race again. He lost his first two races, showing both some of his previous antics as well as moments of brilliance and speed. His third race was the Governor’s Handicap, Detroit’s big race. Against a solid field, including the horse George Woolf had ridden to victory in the 1935 Santa Anita Handicap, Seabiscuit won. From then on, he became a new horse.
Smith now thought Seabiscuit had a chance in the Santa Anita Handicap and began to think about the weight he would be given. In handicap races, the horses were assigned weights, or imposts, to carry based on their skills and past performances (the better the horse, the higher the weight). This helped even out the odds, so the betting wouldn’t all fall on the best horses. Smith wanted to keep Seabiscuit’s talent under wraps, so he signed up for races only in smaller markets like Detroit and Cincinnati. It was at the latter that the extent of Seabiscuit’s competitiveness surfaced. During a hard workout against a stablemate called Exhibit, Seabiscuit was handily winning when he suddenly dropped back. He let Exhibit draw even but no farther, pulling away at the end to win. In effect, he taunted his rival, and this became his trademark, winning with both speed and intimidation.
In October, Howard decided it was time to move on to San Francisco, and horses, crew, and supplies boarded a cross-country train.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Fifteen Strides”
When they arrived in San Francisco in November, none of the press paid them much attention, which is what Smith wanted. He worked Seabiscuit out lightly to conceal his talent. Once, however, when the track was empty, he let the horse give everything he had and Seabiscuit blazed around the course at record-level times. Smith knew then he had a champion on his hands. Seabiscuit won two local races before they all moved on to Santa Anita to prepare for the handicap (known as the “hundred-grander” for its $100,000 purse), held in early 1937. There he would meet his stiffest competition yet: Rosemont, a star of the East Coast who had defeated the 1935 Triple Crown winner.
Seabiscuit’s preparation for the race got off to a rocky start. Because of bad weather and health issues, he missed several races he was scheduled to run in. With the lack of exercise, he had begun to gain weight. Finally, in early February, Seabiscuit started racing again. Howard entered him in the Huntington Beach Handicap, where he would meet Rosemont for the first time. Another horse, however, proved to be the top threat, and the two dueled down the homestretch until Seabiscuit pulled away, winning by four and a half lengths. In his next race, the San Antonio Handicap, he was assigned an outside post position and never made it inside enough to be a threat. Rosemont came out the winner.
Days before the Santa Anita Handicap, rain gave the track a good soaking. Machines were used to dry the dirt, but some dampness remained, especially near the rail. Seabiscuit was assigned an inner position, so he would be running in it. Rosemont was assigned to a far outer position, which would be drier but would also require covering more ground. Another horse broke out front and Pollard kept Seabiscuit just behind, knowing that the leader couldn’t keep up such a furious pace. When he faltered, Seabiscuit made his move and led into the homestretch. Rosemont, however, steadily moved up on the outside. Then Pollard seemed to fall into a lull, not urging Seabiscuit on. His whip, which he used lightly and sparingly just to keep Seabiscuit on task, went unused. In response, Seabiscuit lunged left to the innermost position and, though Pollard snapped out of it and began using his whip, what had been a full-length lead vanished by the end. A surging Rosemont won by a nose in a photo finish.
Afterward, when Howard asked him what had happened, Pollard gave a weak excuse about not being able to move out of the inner position without fouling Rosemont. In truth, Hillenbrand explains, he may not have known how close the other horse was and thought he had an easy win. He most likely couldn’t hear Rosemont over the roar of the huge crowd, and because of the blindness of his right eye, he wouldn’t have been able to see him either until the horse was quite close. If that were the case, he couldn’t let on or his career would be over. He kept quiet and absorbed the blame from the press for losing the race.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Gravity”
This chapter begins with some background on the economic and social atmosphere of the time. Spectator sports were booming, thanks in part to technological advances. Photographs could now be sent around the country immediately via wire services and the price of radios had dropped so much in the past decade that virtually everyone who wanted one could now own one. This, coupled with the Roosevelt Administration’s electrification program, meant that even rural corners of America could share in events from the big cities.
After the Santa Anita Handicap, Smith could no longer keep Seabiscuit a secret. Reporters swarmed the barn and track, looking for photos, interviews, and a glimpse of the great horse. Smith was intensely private by nature and did everything he could to avoid and thwart them. He exercised Seabiscuit gently when they were around, scheduling the real workouts when they were off watching races. Making matters worse was the fact that since racing had only recently been legalized again, there weren’t many sports writers knowledgeable enough about it. As a result, misinformation and rumors—even conspiracy theories—abounded. Since Smith allowed Seabiscuit to appear so infrequently, word started going around that the horse was lame or otherwise impaired.
Charles Howard, on the other hand, reveled in the attention. His goal was to make Seabiscuit a star, and he knew this type of exposure was necessary for that. He did his best to maximize it, even taking out full-page newspaper ads to trumpet Seabiscuit’s victories, and he planned a cross-country racing schedule to introduce his horse to as many people as possible. He courted members of the press, giving them all the interviews and photo-ops they wanted, calling them up on his own to offer updates, and giving them gifts and mementos.
Seabiscuit himself appeared to have gotten fired up by the race in Santa Anita, turning in impressive workouts immediately afterward. His next race was in San Juan Capistrano, where two horses from the same barn would be his main competition. Their jockeys had a strategy to defeat him: the first horse, Special Agent, would jump out to fast start while the second, Indian Broom (ridden by Pollard’s old friend George Woolf) would lurk behind. The plan was to tire Seabiscuit out when Pollard kept him close to Special Agent, and then have Indian Broom overtake him with a push at the end. In the homestretch, however, Seabiscuit bounded passed Special Agent and left Indian Broom in his wake, winning by seven lengths and setting a new track record.
After returning to San Francisco, Smith continued to try to train in secret, but the press still stalked him and his horse. Then, by chance, an opportunity arose to foil them. Seabiscuit’s old stablemate named Grog, also an offspring of Hard Tack, turned up in a claiming race and Smith had Howard buy him. The two horses were indistinguishable to all but Seabiscuit’s inner circle, and Smith delighted in using this to fool reporters. He ran Seabiscuit during Grog’s scheduled workout; no one was interested in watching what they thought was a mediocre horse. Similarly, Grog ran in place of Seabiscuit, causing many to question what the fuss was all about.
Seabiscuit won two more races in San Francisco, including a rematch with Special Agent and Indian Broom, before Howard’s crew packed up to go east for the summer season. Seabiscuit had become famous on the West Coast but still lacked recognition by the East Coast racing establishment. Rosemont was already there, and a rematch awaited. But an even better horse loomed: War Admiral.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
These three chapters chronicle how Seabiscuit went from a mediocre, burned-out racer to one of the top prospects in the country during 1937. It illustrates how Smith used his vast knowledge of horses to find an individual course of action to take with Seabiscuit. This touches on the theme of “where there’s a will, there’s a way” in that a horse that had been written off starts to be transformed into a champion.
Hillenbrand also provides the historical backdrop against which the emergence of Seabiscuit took place. Deep into the Great Depression in the mid-1930s, Americans sought escape from the harsh realities of everyday life. Fueled by people’s distress, movie theaters did a brisk business in “Horatio Alger” tales of a downtrodden soul making it big. Hillenbrand writes that Americans were looking for hero figures in the midst of the misery. A new age of celebrity was emerging, and people were just waiting for such heroes to come sweep them off their feet—even if that happened to be a horse.
This dynamic played out in Seabiscuit’s camp with two very different personalities. While Howard courted the publicity Seabiscuit garnered, Smith shunned it. The latter’s aversion the press, to the point of disdain, led to him tricking reporters to get a little privacy in which to train. This relationship would later cause tension and a backlash (at least by the press if not by the adoring public), as rumors circulated about Seabiscuit’s health. Smith’s secrecy and lack of transparency would come back to haunt him when he actually did tell the truth and want to be believed.
Finally, Chapter 8 shows the perils of Pollard’s continuing to race with a blind right eye. Hillenbrand speculates that this may have cost him the victory in the Santa Anita Handicap, as he had no peripheral vision to see Rosemont on the outside. There’s no other explanation for those seconds on the homestretch when he appeared to be coasting to a victory he may have assumed was his.
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