American Experience

Narrator: On New Year’s Eve 1938, columnist Walter Winchell published his annual list of the top ten newsmakers. Nine men were named, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. The tenth spot went to a horse.

Gelo Hall, Jockey Agent: He was a hero. This horse had to come from the bottom of the heap. To the top.

Newsreel (archival): They’re head and head. It’s horse against horse. Seabiscuit leads by a length…

Gelo Hall, Jockey Agent: And he fought his way up the ladder. And I think this was the thing that people liked about him. And I think that’s the way America likes sometimes to crown their champions.

Newsreel (archival): Ladies and Gentleman, NBC has turned over its nationwide facilities for a paid tribute to Seabiscuit, the Wonderhorse.

Gene Smith, Writer: Maybe the fact that he had the hard scrabble beginning…maybe the fact that he wasn’t good-looking—he was blocky, he was coarse, crude-looking. Maybe the fact that he had a kind of busted down jockey…somehow it all came together to create a star.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: He came along in the worst years of the Depression. Americans were down and out. They were poor, they were losing their jobs and their houses and they, they wanted a hero that came from the wrong side of the tracks, that was beat up like they were. And for a brief moment in America, a little brown racehorse wasn’t just a little brown racehorse. He was the proxy for a nation.

Film Clip from The Story of Seabiscuit, Trainer (archival): Sure he’s small in the body, but big in the heart.

Film Clip from The Story of Seabiscuit, Shirley Temple (archival): What do they call him?

Film Clip from The Story of Seabiscuit, Trainer (archival): Seabiscuit.

Newsreel (archival): Out of the musical Hall of Fame, “The Big Ten,” a tune that has captured the fancy of the nation…

Narrator: On a mild summer afternoon in 1936, a three-year-old thoroughbred named Seabiscuit was saddled up for a cheap stakes race at Boston’s Suffolk Downs. The purse was a paltry $700.

The colt was a direct descendant of the legendary Man o’ War—but you’d never have known it to look at him. Dung-colored, stocky, and low-slung, with knobby, asymmetrical knees that didn’t quite straighten all the way, he was a masterpiece of faulty construction.

He’d been raced an astonishing thirty-five times as a two-year-old, more than triple the average for a horse his age — and he’d lost nearly every time.

But now, as he ambled past the grandstand, he caught the eye of one of the spectators, a veteran horse trainer named Tom Smith.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: Smith nodded at the horse and the horse nodded back at him, and (Smith) later said it was kind of as if the horse was paying an honor to notice him, and the pony boy tugged the horse on his way, and Smith said, “I’ll see you again.”

Narrator: Despite his appalling record, Smith saw something special in the colt. “He had a look,” the trainer said later, “of true confidence.”

Smith’s employer, an ex-bicycle repairman turned automotive magnate named Charles Howard, saw it too. A few weeks later, he bought Seabiscuit for the bargain-basement price of $8,000, and sent him west with Smith, to the Detroit Fairgrounds racetrack to train.

The stablehands in the Howard barn were skeptical. None of them had ever seen such an equine catastrophe. The colt paced in his stall, broke into a lather at the sight of a saddle, and lunged at anyone who dared to go near him. When he ran, his left foreleg jabbed out wildly, as if he were swatting flies. Horsemen called it “an eggbeater gait” — and most considered it a sign of lameness.

But Tom Smith knew what he was doing. A man so laconic that a reporter once suspected he’d removed his tongue, Smith had little patience for people or their opinions. [But] horses he understood.

Farrell Jones, Former Jockey: I think all he ever thought about was a horse. Silent Tom is what they called him. Phuh — he’d do that — phuh, phuh. But I don’t know that he was aware he’d do it; I don’t think that… no, he’d do that. I’d see him — phuh, phuh — do that quite a bit. He was a great horse trainer. He was a dedicated guy to what he did and that was it.

Narrator: Smith made a careful study of Seabiscuit, then devised a regimen targeted to the colt’s specific problems. For nerves, an assortment of soothing animal companions — a spotted dog with enormous platter-like ears, and an amiable yellow cow-pony named Pumpkin. For leg soreness: daily applications of a homemade liniment. And finally, a diet consisting of a high-quality, calcium-rich strain of timothy hay which had to be special-ordered from Northern California.

The stablehands were instructed to give Seabiscuit maximum latitude — and, most importantly, to never, ever disturb him while he was sleeping.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: Most horses can only sleep on the ground for about five minutes at a time because their bodies are so enormous, and they’re configured in such a way that breathing becomes difficult. Seabiscuit was the exception. He would sleep and sleep and sleep.

Narrator: Gradually, Seabiscuit relaxed and rounded into form — but he still didn’t show much interest in running. Smith wondered where he would ever find a jockey sensitive enough to handle him.

As it happened, the jockey found him. His name was John Pollard — but thanks to a shock of flame-colored hair, most people called him “Red.”

Norah Christianson, Red Pollard’s Daughter: He was very, very charming. He had a face, kind of a leprechaun-ish face and he was not short. He was about 5’6”. And that is tall for a jockey… very thin, sinewy. Like a dancer. He quoted Shakespeare at great length and he carried around several books of poems everywhere he went. I think he was capable of being a great many things. My father went to the fourth grade and a teacher told him that he wouldn’t amount to anything. And I think that, uh, that rode him all his life.

Narrator: One of seven children born to a bankrupt brick manufacturer, Pollard had left home at fifteen in the care of a guardian — who then promptly abandoned him at a makeshift racecourse in Butte, Montana. He’d spent the next dozen years kicking around the country’s lowliest tracks, talking his way onto as many mounts as he could and working as a prizefighter to make ends meet.

Pollard drifted onto the Detroit Fairgrounds one afternoon in July 1936, with twenty-seven cents and a few sugar cubes in one pocket, and in the other, a half-pint of a cheap brandy he called “bow-wow wine.”

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: Red Pollard had been at a racetrack where his last mount had simply refused to finish his race. He had a six percent winning average, which is horrendous for a jockey. He would have taken any mount that day, and he went to every single barn on the track. No one would hire him, and he went into the last barn, and Tom Smith gestures to the stall, says, “I’ve got a horse here.”

Norah Christianson, Red Pollard’s Daughter: When they first met, he talked to the horse and the horse responded positively, which this horse did not usually do, and Tom Smith being a very astute judge of man and beast, he knew there was something there… some affinity. A connection.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: Pollard put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a sugar cube and held it out to the horse. And the black muzzle touched the jockey’s shoulder. It was the first affectionate thing Seabiscuit had done to anybody and Tom Smith thought “this is my man.”

Red Pollard had spent his career at bad racetracks on bad horses. The worst animals on the circuit. He understood troubled horses. He was not a guy you would put on a great racehorse, but this is the one he fit. So, he wasn’t a great jockey, but the moments he was on Seabiscuit, he was great.

Narrator: Separately, they were nothing more than a failing jockey and a broken-down horse. Together, they would become hard luck heroes for a troubled nation.

In the lean days of the Depression, Thoroughbred racing was fast becoming America’s most popular sport. Bans on wagering, passed at the turn of the century, had mostly been lifted by the late 1920s — and revenue-hungry states across the country had rushed to re-legalize racing.

Newsreel (archival): Bookie shouting numbers.

Gene Smith, Writer: The opportunities for gambling in the 1930s were very limited. There were no state lotteries. Football was a very minor sport. You wanted to bet on a prize fight, you had to go find a bookie or something. There were casinos in Nevada, but how many people go to Nevada, hence the only place you could really bet was at a racetrack.

Jack Whitaker, Sportscaster: I expect it was a release the dream of making a lot of money, which was in everybody’s head in those days. And I would think that it was an escape for them like the movies were, radio was escape, because it was kind of a brutal time people went to the races six days a week in those days — twenty thousand, forty thousand people.

Narrator: By the fall of 1936, Tom Smith still didn’t know if his gamble on Seabiscuit would ever pay off. One afternoon, he put an exercise rider on the colt’s back, pulled out his stopwatch, and shouted to turn Seabiscuit loose.

The horse came rolling down the backstretch, his body flattening out with each stride, his speed building. By the time he blew by Smith, he was covering more than fifty feet a second — and still picking up steam.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: He kept thinking the horse couldn’t possibly be going this fast, and the horse went under the wire, and he clicked the stopwatch, and the horse had crushed the track record, and this was in a workout. Horses rarely run as fast in workouts as they do in real races, and Smith knew what he had on his hands and he had an opportunity here to conquer the racing world and to make history, and he knew he had to do everything right with this one.

Narrator: The first event on Seabiscuit’s schedule was the annual Governor’s Handicap in Detroit — a small-time event with a big local following.

Among the 28,000 spectators in the stands that afternoon were Charles Howard and his wife Marcela, who’d driven out from California to see what their new horse and his jockey could do.

At 5:39 pm, the starter bell rang. One minute and fifty seconds later, with the crowd on its feet, Seabiscuit crossed the wire first by a nose. In the time it takes to fry an egg, he’d recouped over half of his purchase price. “This Seabiscuit… runs like he means it,” sportswriter Jolly Roger exclaimed, “… with fire, slash and zam.”

Over the next twelve weeks, as Seabiscuit thundered to the winner’s circle again and again—some insiders were touting him as “a dangerous contender” for the Santa Anita Handicap, the signature event at California’s brand new racetrack.

Newsreel (archival): The $100,000 Santa Anita Handicap brings out California’s biggest racing crowd. Movie stars on every hand for the world’s richest race.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: It was probably the richest sporting event in the world. One hundred thousand dollars — all to the winner. A massive amount of money. This is the time when the average American is earning less than $500 a year.

Narrator: On the afternoon of February 27th, 1937, a record crowd of sixty thousand spectators turned out for the third annual Santa Anita Handicap — better known as “the hundred-grander.”

Despite his recent victories, most professional odds makers still considered Seabiscuit a long shot. The smart money was on Rosemont — the lightning-fast five-year-old that had recently trounced 1935’s Triple Crown winner. Nearly $400,000 was riding on the contest — an all-time betting high for western racing.

Newsreel (archival): There they go…

Narrator: The entire field broke at once, in a mad dash for position.

Newsreel (archival): Here on the outside comes Rosemont in a good position…

Narrator: For the next half-mile, Pollard patiently threaded Seabiscuit through the pack, before finally tucking in behind the front-runner.

Newsreel (archival): One half a mile…

Narrator: Rosemont, meanwhile, was on the move from behind, darting in and out of the field, inching up on the outside.

Newsreel (archival): Seabiscuit is now moving up…

Narrator: At the top of the home stretch, Seabiscuit swung into the lead with Rosemont hard on his heels.

Newsreel (archival): Seabiscuit has got the lead and the battle’s on and it’s anybody’s race right til the end.

Laura Hillenbrand, Author: It looked like he had it. They were running down midstretch with a clear lead, and Red Pollard kind of froze. This was the biggest moment in his career, and he stopped urging the horse. For fifteen strides, he just sat there and he started slowing down.

Narrator: With only fifty yards to go, Pollard suddenly snapped into action and dropped the whip across Seabiscuit’s flank.

The two horses hurtled under the wire together.

Newsreel (archival): A photo finish, all eyes turn upward to the photo booth. An eternity for those who anxiously await the outcome — down the slender wire to the judges platform, closely determine the microscopic difference…

Narrator: The winner was Rosemont, by a nose.