Seabiscuit

I have two takes on this book, one here, one next post. I'd only been vaguely aware of Seabiscuit the horse before the movie(which I've yet to see), and after finally getting the book as an Xmas present--what took you so long, family--I've been quite amazed, and truthfully a little on-guard because the horse's performance seems surreal.

For anyone yet to read, the book is superb. Doubt you'll get any argument on that, though I'm about to read the Amazon reviews. Laura Hillenbrand is an above average writer who, though she has a tendency to exaggerate, occasionally lapses into art, such as the last sentence in her nice acknowledgement at the end:

"My final thanks go to Tom Smith, Charles and Marcela Howard, Red Pollard, and George Woolf for living lives of singular vigor and grace, and for giving us the incomparable, unforgettable Seabiscuit."

And, as to the exaggeration you may think those fish stories from the 90 year olds she interviewed may have expanded as the years wore on. Through her writing, but also with the careful construction of events, Ms. Hillenbrand creates a building drama that ends with SB winning the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap, and I thoroughly appreciated her effort and the result.

Of course, I'm also interested in the horse and the training. This takes us way back, much like the Preston Burch book, and though Ms. Hillenbrand never specifies the training and probably would have been unable had she tried given trainer Tom Smith's tricks and secrecy, Hillenbrand is so meticulous in her detail that you may pretty much surmise what went on.

The photos make everything seem a little rougher back then, including the horses. It's actually good to see that some progress has been made in producing a faster, more athletic horse. You may surmise this by comparing Seabiscuit and War Admiral to the likes of our top horses today, Invasor, Curlin, Street Sense, Ghostzapper, Tiznow, I just doubt those 1930s horses could hang. You can see this a little in SB's PPs where he very rarely breaks :12/f. Somebody pointed out it could be difference in tracks, shoeing, weight of course, but still, 80 races and 1:36 miles were considered records whereas now at the top levels you'd be surprised many of them went slower than that.

Still, SB's record is stupendous. Was he just a super horse? Was he tampered with--more on that next post--was it the training, or something else. As to the horse himself, obviously he had a little bit of talent. Most of the photos of SB seem unimpressive, but, some of them taken from just the right angle show a very wide bodied, fairly proportionate animal with large lung capacity, and presumably the cardiovascular system to make it go. The horse is more strong looking than racy, tough to see speed, though SB constantly set course records.

I also was impressed by the large number and close spacing of the early races. SB must have had 45 races under his belt as an middle 3 yr. old, and so much racing early might provide a significant edge in experience where the horse would learn it won't kill him to go even a litle harder at a point where a less experienced horse would quit. Suspect a horse racing his much learns all the tricks, and I consider the frequent racing as one possibility to explain this performance.

The other is the training. From what I can put together from Ms. Hillenbrand's account, Smith trained similar to Burch, frequent breezing, fretting when he's unable to get to the track due to weather, breezing at race speed and race distance, all very Preston Burch like, it seems. And this was at least tough enough that SB could carry 130 lbs over heavy, muddy tracks for a mile and a quarter and survive. That's some training job!

The other interesting thing is how Smith preps for particular events. This was a trainer who believed he could improve and hone his horse, unlike many of our present day Hall of Fame Types who attribute everything to genetics.

For me this book reinforced what I'm trying to do, which made it more enjoyable still!