Seabiscuit And Ephedra?
During the course of my blog occasionally something's posted that's controversial. The photo of George Washington in his final moment drew a comment. This post may be along that line, and so I'd invite anyone wanting totally to preserve positive image of the Seabiscuit story to maybe skip this one, stop reading right now, for I'm dealing with a subject that nagged at me over the course of the story.
Training horses, and I've done so for 20 years, I internalize information immediately, little bits here and there, as I'm trying to relate the horse's training to its race performance. In the case of Seabiscuit, in addition to getting caught up in the story, I found myself time after time, as the book unfolded, attempting to explain the inexplicable.
Never mind the wins, the sudden rise from the barn of one of the best trainers ever Sunny Jim F. to the very heights of horse racing. That sort of thing is at least plausible, particularly as I mentioned last post with this horse's racing experience.
What I had trouble with was often the manner in which it happened. I decline to propose going back to reading and documenting every detail. This and the next post only relate my foggy suspicions as I went through the book:
1. Seabiscuit could spend two weeks on a train, or even a week, doesn't matter, and come off and with a gallop or two be in top form for a race.
2. The best horses in training were unable to catch him in a lot of races carrying 20 lbs less several times over heavy muddy surfaces.
3. There was a puzzler near the end before the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap where allegedly Tom Smith was unable to do anything with training in December and January due to weather, and suddenly with two races under his belt in early February the horse starts winning again against the best horses in the country again under unbelievable weight after a year layoff.
Super horse? Once in a lifetime athlete? I might believe that except that everything about the photos of SB indicates otherwise. Besides being a rather strong wide body, he appears neither particularly fast or athletic compared to some others in the photo. Of course, that's part of the appeal of the story for we readers. The superhorse performance from the seemingly modest circumstance.
For this post I'll leave it that as I went along there was some minor skepticism building. I never saw any explanations for my doubts or anything to pin them on, nor did I dwell on them. The doubts were in the back ground as I was enjoying the book. I'll go on with this next post.
Training horses, and I've done so for 20 years, I internalize information immediately, little bits here and there, as I'm trying to relate the horse's training to its race performance. In the case of Seabiscuit, in addition to getting caught up in the story, I found myself time after time, as the book unfolded, attempting to explain the inexplicable.
Never mind the wins, the sudden rise from the barn of one of the best trainers ever Sunny Jim F. to the very heights of horse racing. That sort of thing is at least plausible, particularly as I mentioned last post with this horse's racing experience.
What I had trouble with was often the manner in which it happened. I decline to propose going back to reading and documenting every detail. This and the next post only relate my foggy suspicions as I went through the book:
1. Seabiscuit could spend two weeks on a train, or even a week, doesn't matter, and come off and with a gallop or two be in top form for a race.
2. The best horses in training were unable to catch him in a lot of races carrying 20 lbs less several times over heavy muddy surfaces.
3. There was a puzzler near the end before the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap where allegedly Tom Smith was unable to do anything with training in December and January due to weather, and suddenly with two races under his belt in early February the horse starts winning again against the best horses in the country again under unbelievable weight after a year layoff.
Super horse? Once in a lifetime athlete? I might believe that except that everything about the photos of SB indicates otherwise. Besides being a rather strong wide body, he appears neither particularly fast or athletic compared to some others in the photo. Of course, that's part of the appeal of the story for we readers. The superhorse performance from the seemingly modest circumstance.
For this post I'll leave it that as I went along there was some minor skepticism building. I never saw any explanations for my doubts or anything to pin them on, nor did I dwell on them. The doubts were in the back ground as I was enjoying the book. I'll go on with this next post.
posted by rather rapid at
11:09 AM
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