Seabiscuit: An American Legend

by Laura Hillenbrand

  January 31 started out as an ordinary Monday for the clockers. They watched the waves of horses coming and going from the track at their usual early-morning times. As Santa Anita was closed on Mondays, they would normally have gone home in midmorning, when the workouts were over. But they still hadn’t timed a single workout for Seabiscuit since he arrived at Santa Anita a month before. They settled in to wait him out. Gradually, attrition thinned the ranks. By lunchtime, only two hardy clockers remained. A handful of reporters gutted out the wait with them. Their hopes dimmed as they watched a rainstorm approaching. They knew that Seabiscuit didn’t work on wet tracks.

  Shortly after lunch, just before the rains hit, the clockers were startled by an improbable spectacle. Two men and two horses materialized from under the purple storm clouds, walked up the track, and reined up in front of the press box. It was Tom Smith, on a broad yellow horse. Alongside him, Red Pollard sat in his customary seat atop the familiar little bay horse. The clockers gaped: Smith was waving at them.

  They lunged for their stopwatches. Smith, seeing that the track was standing at attention, cantered the horses once around, then pulled up at the finish line while Pollard and his mount peeled off for a workout. With Pollard sitting motionless in the saddle, they reeled off rapid fractions, clipping under the wire after six furlongs. Smith took the horse back to the barn. The reporters bounced along behind, teasing Smith for letting himself get caught. Smith, for some reason not his usual surly self, laughed with them, saying he hadn’t been aware that the clockers and reporters were still there. “I figured I’d just steal the march on everybody,” he said. “Doggone those clockers.10 I’ll fool them yet.” The next morning the papers were full of the news.

  But a year of dealing with Tom Smith had gotten to some of the reporters. Paranoia was setting in. Something wasn’t right. Wasn’t it suspicious that Smith had waved at them? Didn’t Seabiscuit seem to be blowing a little too hard after the work? Wasn’t it odd that Smith was so amiable about having been caught? Had anyone ever seen him smile before? Could it be that the horse was not Seabiscuit after all? In the press corps only the Los Angeles Evening Herald’s Jack McDonald was willing to speculate publicly, and only in his headline: HOWARD HORSE PULLED UP “GROGGY” AFTER FAST WORK.11

  Back in Barn 38, Smith must have read that headline and smiled.

  The laughter subsided immediately. A few days after Seabiscuit’s six-furlong workout, a tipster contacted the local district attorney’s office with a startling claim: On the backstretch at Santa Anita a man was preparing to harm Seabiscuit. His name was James Manning, and he had infiltrated the barn area with plans to break into Seabiscuit’s stall and shove a sponge up his nostril, impeding his breathing. Manning had been sent by a group of men from the East Coast who wanted to ensure that Seabiscuit would lose the Santa Anita Handicap. Because Seabiscuit’s fans had made him the prohibitive favorite in the race, his rivals had become relative long shots. If the race-fixing conspirators could stop Seabiscuit, they could take advantage of the other horses’ long odds, cash in huge bets, and disappear.

  The district attorney took the tip seriously. Manning was quickly hunted down and arrested before he could reach Seabiscuit’s stall. In interrogation, he confessed. Because the police had caught him before he could carry out his crime, prosecutors didn’t have much to charge him with. They settled for a charge of vagrancy and gave him the option of being expelled from the state or serving jail time. Manning chose the former. Police escorted him to the border and booted him across.

  The news broke on February 1 with front-page banner headlines. A ripple of horror spread across the backstretch. “Sponging,” an old race-fixing technique from racing’s corrupt days, threatened horses’ lives.12 The ensuing partial strangulation frequently triggered systemic, stress-related diseases that were often fatal. And unless a horseman was actively looking for the sponge, it could go undetected for weeks.

  Smith put Manning out of his mind and went back to tormenting the clockers. By mid-February the reporters had figured out that when Howard went to the training track Seabiscuit was soon to follow, and they had taken to trailing the owner around. Smith used this to his advantage. During the races he sent Howard over to his box at the main Santa Anita track as a decoy while he led Seabiscuit over to the training track nearby.13 Just before Seabiscuit worked out, Howard excused himself from his box for a moment. Sprinting to the training track, he stayed for the one and a half minutes necessary for Seabiscuit to blaze through a mile workout. A moment later he was back in his box. He’d been gone so briefly that no one suspected he’d done anything more interesting than visit the men’s room.

  The workout demonstrated that the horse was ready for the February 19 San Carlos Handicap, and for once the track secretary relented, assigning him 130 pounds. Pollard, finally released from his suspension, was itching to ride him. On the day before the race, everything seemed to be coming together.

  But again, luck ran out. All night long, rain pounded the track. The next morning the course was a swamp, and Smith scratched his horse for the fourth straight time. Fair Knightess, a better mudder, was left in the race, and Pollard opted to ride her instead.14 The decision was the pivot point of his life.

  As the San Carlos field leaned around the far turn, Pollard was bent over the back of Fair Knightess, who was racing along the rail in fourth. Around him, close enough to touch, was a dense phalanx of horses moving at terrific speed: Indian Broom on the rail, Pompoon on the outside, Mandingham right on Fair Knightess’s tail. Just inches ahead of Fair Knightess was He Did, the horse famous for having sideswiped Seabiscuit’s old stablemate Granville at the start of the 1936 Kentucky Derby, knocking his jockey off. Midway around the far turn at Santa Anita, He Did did it again.

  Leading the dense pack of horses around the turn, He Did took an awkward, sagging step. For an instant, he lost his momentum. The formation of runners collapsed, and horses began to rack up behind him. With nowhere to go and no time to stop herself, Fair Knightess charged straight into the bottleneck. Pollard must have seen He Did’s dark hindquarters suddenly in his face, too close. He had no time to react. Fair Knightess reached forward just as He Did kicked out with his heels.

  Jockeys say there is a small, bright sound when hooves clip against each other, a cheery portent of the wreck that is likely to follow. Pollard must have heard it. Fair Knightess’s forelegs were kicked out from under her. Unable to catch herself, she pitched into a somersault at forty miles per hour. Under Pollard her head and neck dropped away as the ground heaved up. Pollard went down with her, his helpless form following the line of her fall, over her back and neck and vanishing under her crashing body. She came down onto him with terrific force and skidded to a stop.

  Behind her, jockey Maurice Peters, aboard Mandingham, saw her plow into the track and knew he could not avoid her. Mandingham saw her too, and gathered himself up to make a desperate leap over her as she lay on the track. Perhaps, for an instant, it seemed as if he would make it. But just as he reared up and launched himself into the air, Fair Knightess thrust her forelegs out in front of her and lifted herself up directly into Mandingham’s path. Mandingham slammed into her. The force of the collision knocked Fair Knightess down the track and flipped her upside down. Pollard, lying just beyond her, couldn’t get out of her way. Her full weight came down on his chest. Mandingham flew over Fair Knightess, his legs tangling with hers. He bent in the air like a thrashing fish and spun into the ground shoulder first. Peters rode him down.

  From the grandstand came a heavy sound. Then all fell silent. Peters, his ankle sprained, lifted himself up. Mandingham rose, his shoulder bruised and his foreleg gashed by Fair Knightess’s hoof but otherwise uninjured. Fair Knightess lay where she was. Peters limped over to Pollard and looked down.

  The left side of Pollard’s chest was crushed.

  Charles Howard saw Pollard go down, staring in horror as Fair Knightess’s flailing legs rolled skyward over him. He sta
red at the crumpled form, the great overturned animal—in an instant he and Marcela were running blindly, pushing through the crowd. They sprinted through the mud to Pollard’s side. The jockey was barely conscious, his mouth wide open. He was carried to the track infirmary. An ambulance arrived. The Howards climbed in and rode with Pollard to St. Luke’s Hospital in Pasadena.

  Behind them, Smith sank down into the dirt beside Fair Knightess, who did not rise. Her back had been horribly wrenched. Her hind end was paralyzed.15 Smith somehow got her pulled into a van and taken back to the barn, where she lay helpless. Smith ordered X rays. If her back was broken, it was over. He stayed at the barn and worked over her to save her life.

  At the hospital, the news was grim. Pollard’s chest had virtually caved in. He had several broken ribs, a collarbone shattered into countless fragments, severe internal injuries, a broken shoulder, and a concussion. For several hours, he barely clung to life. Newspapers all over the country shouted the news. Some reported that Pollard had been killed. Up in Edmonton, his father stumbled into his house before his children, clutching a newspaper. Pollard’s sister Edie saw the headline: SEABISCUIT’S JOCKEY NEAR DEATH.

  Three days passed. Pollard hovered. Smith and Howard sat by his bed. Finally, the jockey stabilized. The reporters slipped into his hospital room. Flashbulbs popped in his pale, unshaven face. His arm hung up in traction. Pollard didn’t look at the reporters. He stared without expression at the half-page newspaper photos of himself, taken an instant before the wreck, showing him coiled over Fair Knightess’s withers.

  Doctors told him he wouldn’t ride again for at least a year.

  In the jockey’s risky universe, everyone understood that some rider was going to profit from Pollard’s loss. The redhead was not even out of danger before Howard and Smith were tailed by jockeys and agents seeking the mount. Howard couldn’t think about them. All he could think of was Pollard’s injuries, incurred on his horse. He couldn’t bring himself to run Seabiscuit in the Santa Anita Handicap.

  Howard and Smith went to the hospital, and Pollard made himself clear. The horse had to run without him. After some consideration, Howard agreed. They had to find a new jockey. Again, Pollard asked Howard to hire George Woolf.16 Smith thought it was a good idea. Woolf had already committed to ride a horse named Today in the hundred-grander and its final prep race, the San Antonio Handicap, but there was a chance they could get him out of the contract. Howard favored eastern rider Sonny Workman, but Lin and Bing had already signed him on to ride Ligaroti. Smith, who operated under the assumption that all easterners were up to no good, didn’t trust Workman anyway. With the decision up in the air and the San Antonio less than a week away, Howard, Smith, and Pollard parted. Howard made his announcement. “Seabiscuit will run if I have to ride him myself,” he said.17 “Of course, that might put a little too much weight on Seabiscuit.”

  With that, the flood began. Howard and Smith were besieged with telegrams and calls from jockeys all over the country. As Howard walked through the track, riders swirled around him like snowflurries. He and Smith conducted interviews in the tack room. Smith decided that if he couldn’t have Woolf, he wanted a rough-and-tumble, freckle-faced western rider named Noel “Spec” Richardson, a close friend of Pollard and Woolf. Howard couldn’t make up his mind.

  Meanwhile, Smith honed Seabiscuit. The fact that the trainer was working the horse on Mondays was now the worst-kept secret in racing; when he led the horse onto the track on the Monday after Pollard’s accident, two thousand cheering fans greeted him. Smith asked Farrell Jones, who would be up for the workout, to wear his bulkiest leather jacket and use an extra-heavy saddle. All told, Jones, the saddle, and the jacket tipped the scales at 127 pounds. Smith then drilled Seabiscuit in tag-team fashion. Sending him off alongside sprinter Limpio, he stationed the other two stablemates, Advocator and Chanceview, at preassigned places around the track. Limpio took off with Seabiscuit, and the two dueled through sprinter fractions. After half a mile, Advocator hooked up with Seabiscuit as Limpio dropped away, exhausted. In another half mile, Chanceview relieved Advocator, gunning alongside Seabiscuit for a final eighth of a mile. The final time was superb. It was a solid, taxing workout, whittling ten pounds off of Seabiscuit’s frame. Howard was buoyant. He began making side bets with friends that Seabiscuit would smash the track record in the San Antonio. Smith agreed that the horse was better than ever. “I have the big horse as good as hands can make him,” he said.18 “Now it’s up to the rider to get him home in front.”

  Who that rider would be was still undecided. On the day before the San Antonio, Smith and Howard put Sonny Workman up on their colt Ariel Cross for a race.19 He rode beautifully, and Ariel Cross won. There had been a rider switch on Ligaroti—perhaps Howard had talked his son into going with another jockey—and Workman was suddenly available for the San Antonio and Santa Anita Handicaps. Smith still didn’t want him going anywhere near Seabiscuit, but it wasn’t up to him. The next morning Howard hired Workman, but only for the San Antonio. If he rode well in the race, it was implied, Workman had the mount on Seabiscuit in the hundred-grander. Smith took Workman to Pollard’s hospital bed for a tutorial on the subtleties of riding Seabiscuit.

  It was there that the confusion began. Pollard told Workman all about Seabiscuit’s oddities. The redhead stressed one point: Do not use the whip. It is not clear why he gave this advice, since he usually gave the horse two taps during races. He was probably concerned that Workman, being unfamiliar with Seabiscuit, would overdo it and antagonize the horse. Knowing that the horse, when forced, tended to become obstreperous, Pollard may have decided to err on the side of caution and advise Workman to withhold the whip.

  The next afternoon Smith and Howard stood on the grass in the infield and gave Workman their own instructions. They told him to use his judgment on strategy, but to give Seabiscuit two swats with his whip, once at the top of the stretch and once seventy yards from the wire. Smith was apparently unaware that his advice conflicted with Pollard’s. Workman opted to follow the rider’s instructions.

  The San Antonio was a terrible place to make a season debut after a long layoff.20 The track, though fast, was thick. The field was formidable, featuring Seabiscuit’s old rivals Aneroid and Indian Broom, plus Today, with Woolf up. Seabiscuit was carrying 130 pounds, 12 more than second-high weight Aneroid and as much as 20 more than other horses in the field. The man on his back was a stranger, unfamiliar with his quirks, with only a few hours of preparation and conflicting advice on how to ride him. It was a formula for disaster.

  As Seabiscuit cantered to the post for the San Antonio, Pollard lay on his hospital cot at St. Luke’s. He was in severe pain. Nurses had stacked sandbags all along his left side to prevent him from turning over on his broken chest. His left arm was in traction, a pulley slung to his wrist. His right, pinching a cigarette, was stretched out for the knob on a radio, which the nurses had perched on a stack of magazines. He fiddled with the tuning knob, trying to find the station that would air the race. Turf writer Sid Ziff, from the Los Angeles Evening Herald, slipped into the room. Pollard greeted him with a pained smile. “Good old Biscuit,” he said, “he’ll break the world record today.” He surveyed his arm and winced. “It doesn’t matter that I’m here, Sonny Workman’s up out there. Sonny’s a great jockey.” He lay back and fell silent, listening to radio caller Clem McCarthy tell his audience about the crash of Fair Knightess.21 He stubbed out his cigarette. He was agitated and unhappy. He was out of place, here on the cot while his horse ran without him.

  Miles away, Seabiscuit was coming unwound. Workman couldn’t get him settled down. The horse reverted to his rebellious habits in the starting gate, bulling forward and raising a fuss. He reared, flung the starter aside, and broke through the front of the gate. They loaded him again, but Workman couldn’t quiet him. The frustrated assistant starter began waving a rope back and forth in front of the horse’s face to distract him. Just before the bell rang, Seabiscuit lunged
. The assistant starter caught him and shoved him backward at the same instant that the field sprang away. Seabiscuit came out late, only to be bumped by a straggling horse to his outside. By the time he recovered, he was in seventh, four lengths behind Aneroid and Indian Broom.

  Pollard jerked partially upright, his hair mussed from the pillow. “Biscuit!” he shouted. “Get going, Biscuit!” He wiggled closer to the radio. Word came that Seabiscuit was inching forward, and he relaxed a little.

  Workman held Seabiscuit back, around the first turn and down the long backstretch. On the far turn, he began sweeping around the field. As Seabiscuit pulled into the stretch, only Indian Broom and Aneroid remained to be caught. “Here comes Seabiscuit!” shouted McCarthy, and the crowd noise echoed into Pollard’s hospital room. “Go get those bums, Seabiscuit!” Pollard sang out. “Get ’em, you old devil!”

  In the stands, Smith was focusing on Workman’s hands.22 The jockey was not cocking his whip. He thought he didn’t need to. Seabiscuit was picking off horses and running freely beneath him. In midstretch he collared Indian Broom, then took aim at Aneroid, who was alone on the lead but weakening. They clipped past the seventy-yard pole. Seabiscuit was lopping a foot off of Aneroid’s lead with every stride, but room was running out. Workman thought he would get there. Smith felt the anger rising in him. He could see that the horse was fooling around, playing with Aneroid. Workman didn’t seem to notice. He just sat there. The whip lay flat on Seabiscuit’s neck.

  “Aneroid is leading, still leading,” chanted McCarthy. Pollard rose up as if in the saddle, yanking at the pulley holding his arm. The sheets slid from his body and the sandbags tumbled free as he bent before the radio. “Go get him, Biscuit!” he pleaded. “You broke his heart once. Break it again.” He crouched over the bed, as if moving over his horse. His forehead was puckered in sweat.