He knew the avenue to that would be through the press. He would send barrels of champagne to the press box. He would run up to the press box after races to see if anybody wanted him to comment. He would pull Seabiscuit's shoes off after races and have them cast into silver ash trays. He was everywhere the press was. He carried around a book filled with phone numbers of all of the press, so that he could call them and give them updates, and he made everybody feel like they had a scoop, and that encouraged everyone to cover the horse.

As a result, or largely as a result of this, Seabiscuit was the number one story in newspapers in 1938. He received more newspaper column inches than anybody else. Roosevelt was second, and Hitler was third.

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