Seabiscuit (horse)
| Seabiscuit | |
| Race: | English blood |
| Father: | Hard tack |
| Mother: | Swing on |
| Mother, father: | Whisk Broom II |
| Gender: | stallion |
| Year of birth: | 1933 |
| Year of death: | 1947 |
| Country: | USA (Kentucky) |
| Colour: | Brown |
| Breeder: | Wheatley Stable |
| Owner: | Charles S. Howard |
| Trainer: |
Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons Tom Smith |
| Record: | 89 starts: 33 wins, 15 place |
| Prize amount: | $ 437,730 |
| Greatest wins, titles and awards | |
| Greatest victories | |
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Massachusetts Handicap (1937) Match race against War Admiral (1938) Pimlico Special (1938) Hollywood Gold Cup (1938) Santa Anita Handicap (1940) |
|
| title | |
|
US Champion Handicap Male (1937 & 1938) US Horse of the Year (1938) |
|
| Awards | |
|
United States Racing Hall of Fame (1958) # 25 - Top 100 US Racehorses of the 20th Century Life-size statue in Santa Anita Park |
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Infobox last modified on: February 19, 2007. |
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Seabiscuit (born May 23, 1933 in Lexington , Kentucky , † May 17, 1947 in Willits , California ) was an American thoroughbred racehorse .
The stallion whose racing career started not very promising, became the most successful racehorse of his time, which ran a series of races with spectacular race courses and in light of the global economic crisis has become a symbol of hope for many Americans. In a total of 89 races, Seabiscuit won 33 times, finished second 15 times and finished third 13 times. Seabiscuit won a total of $ 437,730 in prize money - the equivalent of approximately $ 5.6 million today .
It is sometimes claimed that in 1938, the peak of his racing career, this racehorse was given more prominence in US newspapers than politicians Adolf Hitler or Franklin D. Roosevelt .
Early years
Seabiscuit was descended from the mare Swing on and the stallion Hard Tack . This in turn was a son of the famous racehorse Man o 'War . The colt grew up on the Claiborne Farm in Paris , Kentucky . Little indicated that it was suitable for a racehorse; for an English thoroughbred it was a relatively small horse, the forefoot joints were not ideally built up, and it tended to take long periods of sleep and eating. It was initially trained by the famous horse trainer Jim Fitzsimmons, whose horses had won a number of the most important American horse races. Fitzsimmons saw potential in the stallion but thought he was too lazy to really run successfully in races. Since Fitzsimmons had a very successful horse in training with Omaha , little time was spent on training Seabiscuit and the stallion only entered a few insignificant races. Seabiscuit did not win any of his first ten races - in most of them he galloped behind the field. Seabiscuit was considered incorrigible and made the training partner of better horses and forced to lose head to head against the other horse in order to increase the other horse's confidence. As a three year old Seabiscuit took part in 35 races, won five of them and finished second in seven. Still, the horse was considered so unpromising that it was sold for $ 8,000 to the car dealer Charles Howard, who wanted to build his own racing team.
1936 and 1937
The first successes
Charles Howard hired Tom Smith as his trainer , who countered the horse's lethargic character with unorthodox training methods. Tom Smith also found in the Canadian jockey Red Pollard (1909–1981) a rider for this horse who could handle its character well. On August 22, 1936, Seabiscuit ran the first race for its new owner. While it was not a successful race, there were significant improvements in Seabiscuit's racing performance. In the next eight races in the eastern United States, the Seabiscuit and Red Pollard team was successful several times. They won the Detroit's Governor's Handicap (prize money $ 5600) and the Scarsdale Handicap (prize money $ 7300) , among others .
In November 1936 Seabiscuit was transported to California by train . His last two races in 1936 took place on the Bay Meadows Racetrack in San Francisco. Both races won by Seabiscuit showed the potential of this stallion. The $ 2,700 Bay Bridge Handicap was just over a mile. Due to his success in the races in the east of the USA, the race management sent Seabiscuit with a weight of 116 pounds in the race. (A jockey who, including his saddle, weighs less than the weight specified by the race control, can achieve this with additional lead weights).
Seabiscuit got off to a bad start in this race; he was behind the field when he came out of the starting box, but he worked his way through the field of his competitors on the short distance, won by a margin of five lengths and missed the record for this circuit by just 0.4 seconds. This form of racing would characterize Seabiscuits races for the next few years and make them a favorite of the American public. The press described him as a horse with a fighter heart, who also struggled forward from a hopeless situation.
The first Santa Anita race
1937 didn't start out quite as successfully. Howard and Smith had set out to do, the glorious, with a prize money of $ 100,000 equipped Santa Anita Park to win -race with Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit won the first preparatory race; in the second preparatory race, Seabiscuit was hindered at the start and only crossed the finish line in fifth . The winner was the racehorse Rosemont , which was also one of the favorites in the Santa Anita race.
A week later, the two horses met again in the Santa Anita race. Seabiscuit led the race but inexplicably slowed at the finish line and Rosemont was able to take the race by a nose. It was a major defeat for Smith and Howard. The press attributed it to a riding mistake by Pollard - and did not rule out that it was a deliberate riding mistake. This was a serious accusation, as race results were repeatedly manipulated due to the race bets . It was not known that Pollard had been blinded in one eye due to a previous racing accident - this restriction, which actually made him unsuitable as a jockey, was kept secret by Pollard throughout his career as a jockey. Much more likely than deliberate braking of the horse is that Pollard did not see the horse catching up and was so certain of victory that he no longer drove Seabiscuit.
Racing successes in the east of the USA
Despite the defeat and press allegations, Smith and Howard retained Pollard as Seabiscuit's jockey. And Seabiscuit became more and more a favorite of the California racing crowd. He won his next three races in the west and Howard decided to have the horse brought to the east of the United States, where the most important American horse races were held.
Seabiscuits' winning streak continued there too. Between June 26th and August 7th he started in five races and won them all. The race management let him start with an increasing weight. He was placed on a weight of 132 pounds for the Narragansett Special on September 11th. Due to the rain , the race ground was softened and therefore actually too deep and heavy for Seabiscuit. The high racing weight would hinder him on this soft ground; the coach Smith actually wanted to withdraw the mention of Seabiscuit, but Howard overruled him. As the coach had predicted, Seabiscuit was unsuccessful in this race. He crossed the finish line in third four lengths behind the winning horse Calumet Dick , who only carried a racing weight of 115 pounds. The winning streak was interrupted. Seabiscuit won three more races that year; in the Pimlico race he finished second.
With this winning streak, Seabiscuit was the racehorse that had won the most prize money in the United States. On the west coast, the inconspicuous horse that lethargically endured the award ceremonies was now a celebrity. His races were followed on the radio with almost fanatical enthusiasm; his successes filled the weekly reports in the cinemas and thousands of newspaper lines dealt with this horse, which had such an unpromising start, was trained by a hitherto unknown trainer and whose owner was an upstart who had repaired bicycles a few years ago . Howard, who has now risen to become a wealthy car dealer thanks to his talent for business, was a master at dealing with the press and marketing the success of his horse.
The horse racing establishment was based in the eastern United States and responded much more cautiously to Seabiscuit. Despite the success of Seabiscuit, the three-year-old War Admiral was voted “Racehorse of the Year” because this horse had won the most important east coast races. The competition between Seabiscuit and War Admiral would also shape the year 1938.
The best racehorse in the USA
The second Santa Anita race
Pollard had earned a reputation with Tom Smith for being able to deal with the character traits of Seabiscuit like no other jockey. On February 19, 1938, however, Pollard had a serious accident while riding another horse from Howard's stables in a race. He sustained a number of broken bones that would not allow him to race for several months. Smith and Howard searched for a replacement for Pollard for a long time, until they selected George Woolf, who was considered an excellent rider and an old friend of Pollard's.
Woolf's first race on Seabiscuit would be the famous Santa Anita handicap , which Seabiscuit had narrowly lost the year before. Again Seabiscuit got off to a bad start as he was hampered by the racing horse Count Atlas , which swung sideways . Both horses were very quickly six lengths behind the rest of the field, but then delivered a spectacular comeback. The winner was still the racehorse stagehand , which carried 30 pounds less weight than Seabiscuit race. Seabiscuit was celebrated as a moral winner by the press and the racing public due to the unusual course of the race.
Seabiscuit and War Admiral
As early as 1937, the press had speculated about a race between Seabiscuit and the apparently invincible War Admiral . For many, it was more than just a race between two horses - it was also a race between the Eastern establishment that shaped horse racing and the rising west coast; between a horse from one of the best racing stables in the East and an outsider with an unusual career, but against the background of the same parentage: Seabiscuit's father Hard Tack and War Admiral were brothers and in turn sons of the legendary stallion Man o 'War. Both owners negotiated hard about the racing conditions because they wanted to ensure optimal conditions for their respective horse. The race was scheduled four times; Seabiscuit was withdrawn four times. Three times rain had softened the circuit too much so that Seabiscuit would not have had a chance in the race. The fourth time, Seabiscuit was physically unfit. The press followed closely, harshly criticizing Howard and Smith for withdrawing.
After all, Pollard, the jockey who got along best with Seabiscuit, was recovered enough to ride a race. On June 23, however, Pollard suffered another serious riding accident with the horse Modern Youth . During a race training session, the young stallion that Pollard rode for training reasons shied away. Pollard fell from his saddle, but got one foot caught in the stirrup. The panicked horse galloped through the stables of the racing area, dragging Pollard behind him. When Pollard was finally able to free himself from the stirrup, one of his legs was so shattered that it was uncertain whether he would ever walk again. That would make George Woolf the jockey who would ride Seabiscuit in his race against War Admiral.
The "Race of the Century"
On Tuesday, November 1st, 1938, the two racehorses finally met in the race that was euphorically called the race of the century . The race, which should go over a mile and 3/16, is still one of the greatest sporting events in US history. Although it was a working day, an unusually high number of 40,000 spectators gathered at the racetrack for the time. So many people wanted to attend this racing event that they even had to open the infield to spectators. Trains had brought viewers from across the country to Pimlico Racecourse near Baltimore , Maryland , and 40 million people watched the race on the radio. Was Admiral was the undisputed favorite of the race; the odds of most bookmakers were 1 to 4 for him and most sports journalists were also sure of the outcome of this race.
War Admiral was famous for the speed with which he approached a race. In races in which he won, he usually led the field from the start. Seabiscuit, on the other hand, was a racehorse that only developed its speed towards the end of a race. Smith knew that he would have to train Seabiscuit to keep up with the pace of War Admiral from the start, should Seabiscuit stand a chance against the exceptional horse War Admiral . In order not to be observed by the press during his training methods, he and Woolf Seabiscuit trained at night to gallop off at the highest possible speed when the starting bell rings.
When the starting bell rang on November 1st, Seabiscuit took off at such a speed that it was a length ahead of War Admiral after only 20 seconds . Seabiscuit was able to maintain this distance over most of the racetrack, but on the back straight, War Admiral began to catch up and draw level with Seabiscuit. Following Pollard's advice, Woolf did not push Seabiscuit immediately, but instead let Seabiscuit see the opposing horse next to him. When he released the reins, Seabiscuit still had enough strength to increase his racing speed even more. Was admiral couldn't keep up; when Seabiscuit crossed the finish line, he was four lengths ahead of his opponent.
In light of this spectacular success, Seabiscuit was named Racehorse of the Year . The only victory he was missing now was victory in the Santa Anita race.
The spectacular return
The accident
The season goal for 1939 was to win the $ 125,000 race in Santa-Anita. Seabiscuit had grown fatter during the winter and poor weather conditions limited the horse's ability to exercise. The first race Seabiscuit entered was a race over the mile on February 14th. The track's floor was softened by rain and Seabiscuit seemed to stumble early after the start of the race. Seabiscuit finished second, but Woolf stopped his horse abruptly shortly after crossing the finish line. The investigations of the veterinarians confirmed what Woolf feared: Seabiscuit had seriously injured a tendon of the left front foot.
Training with Pollard
There was little hope for Seabiscuit that he would be able to contest another race. Seabiscuit was brought to Howard's stud, where Pollard was already living with his young wife Agnes. Pollard, who, like all jockeys at the time, was not insured, was in extremely poor health and financially after his serious accident. Howard minimally performed his moral duties as an employer by offering him a job in his stables.
The lame horse and the limping Pollard took long, slow walks around the property. With the help of a metal rail that supported his weakened leg, Pollard gradually dared to get back into the saddle of the horse. After long rides at the crotch, the two finally dared to go faster again. Seabiscuit made more progress than Pollard in this phase.
Towards the end of 1939, veterinarians declared Seabiscuit fit enough to be exposed to the rigors of race training. Various jockeys trained the horse. Shortly before the planned first race in early 1940, Pollard persuaded Howard to let him ride. Seabiscuit was beaten two lengths behind and was only third. However, this comeback brought horse and rider enormous public approval. In the third race under Pollard, Seabiscuit set the track record for a mile and 1/16 again.
The third Santa Anita race
After three successful races, Howard Pollard could not refuse to ride Seabiscuit in Santa-Anita, where there has been no victory so far. 78,000 spectators came to the racetrack this time. The start was unspectacular, Seabiscuit came out of the start box slowly, as so often, and Pollard, who was still cautious, found his way largely blocked by the field in front of him. Using smaller gaps between the horses galloping in front of him, Pollard slowly worked his way forward. When only “Wedding Call” and “Whichcee” lay in front of him, he daringly pulled Seabiscuit all the way in. As in the past, Seabiscuit once again demonstrated its ability to mobilize reserves of strength at the end of a strenuous race and to become faster again. He left “Wedding Call” and “Whichcee” behind and won the race by one and a half lengths.
When Seabiscuit crossed the finish line, the spectators could no longer be held. Once again the horse had delivered an exceptional race and fought its way forward in a spectacular way from a seemingly hopeless situation. Surrounded by well-wishers, it took a long time for the horse, rider, trainer and owner to meet at the award ceremony.
Use as a breeding stallion and death
On April 10, 1940 it was officially announced that Seabiscuit would not run any more races. He returned to Howard's Ridgewood Ranch as a breeding stallion. It left the turf as the financially most successful racehorse of its time.
Seabiscuit sired 108 foals, but only two of his offspring, Sea Swallow and Sea Sovereign , had reasonably successful racing careers. It was so popular with the people that 5000 people visited it in its final years.
The charity tasted Seabiscuit so well that he is pitting whopping 150 kg overweight. Seabiscuit died of heart failure in 1947.
Aftermath
In Santa Anita Park, a life-size bronze statue honors the racing horse Seabiscuit. In 1958 he was elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame . The Blood-Horse magazine chose him as if it determined the top 100 thoroughbreds of the 20th century, ranked 25th
As early as 1949, Hollywood dedicated the film The Story of Seabiscuit to the racehorse , although it had little to do with Seabiscuit's life. Shirley Temple starred in it, Seabiscuit was portrayed by his descendant Sea Sovereign .
Laura Hillenbrand published the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend in 2001 , which has won several awards. It details Seabiscuit's racing career, its impact on the American public, and includes biographies of Tom Smith, Charles Howard, and Red Pollard. Hillenbrand also provides a deep insight into the life of jockeys in the 1930s and the processes in racing. The book was the basis for the film Seabiscuit - With the Will to Success (2003), which was honored with seven Oscar nominations.
ancestry
|
Father Hard Tack b. 1926 |
Man o 'war ch. 1917 |
Fair play ch. 1905 |
Hastings |
| Fairy gold | |||
| Mahubah b. 1910 |
Rock sand | ||
| Merry Token | |||
| Tea Biscuit 1912 |
Rock sand br. 1900 |
Sainfoin | |
| Roquebrune | |||
| Teas Over ch. 1893 |
Hanover | ||
| Tea rose | |||
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Mother swing on b. 1926 |
Whisk Broom II ch. 1907 |
Broomstick b. 1901 |
Ben Brush |
| Eleven | |||
| Audience 1901 |
Sir Dixon | ||
| Sallie McClelland | |||
| Balance b. 1919 |
Rabelais br. 1900 |
St. Simon | |
| Satirical | |||
| Balancoire b. 1911 |
Meddler | ||
| Ballantrae |
literature
- Laura Hillenbrand: Seabiscuit. An American legend . Random House, New York 2001, ISBN 0-375-50291-2
- Laura Hillenbrand: Seabiscuit. With the will to succeed. The book on the film Ullstein, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-548-36482-9
Web links
- The Seabiscuit Heritage Foundation (English)
- Seabiscuit - An American Legend (English, with various images)
