COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

SEABISCUIT: An American Legend
by Laura Hillenbrand
New York: Random House, 2001.

"Hillenbrand's popular book has gained extraordinarily favorable reviews and may well prove to be the most significant book on racing since William Nack's Secretariat," said Kenneth Tomlinson, president of the NSL.

Andrew Beyer, racing columnist for the Washington Post, wrote: "As I read an advanced copy, I would call Nack to recite passages, and we both marveled at the grace of Hillenbrand's prose. This is hardly a unique opinion, because the author has already hit a trifecta of sorts. Her article on Seabiscuit in American Heritage magazine won the Eclipse Award for magazine writing."

Seabiscuit was a mediocre claiming horse until Charles Howard purchased him for a song. Howard once repaired bicycles but then made a fortune by introducing the motorcar to the western states. Howard turned the horse over to trainer Tom Smith, who put one-eyed jockey, Red Pollard, in the stirrups.

Seabiscuit led by trainer Tom Smith, with his owner, Charles Howard.
	"Seabiscuit and War Admiral turn out of the backstretch and drive for the wire, November 1, 1938."

Seabiscuit became a national hero under the care of Smith and Pollard which climaxed into an East-meets-West match race at Pimlico Race Course on November 1, 1938. Seabiscuit from California was pitted against the 1937 Triple Crown Winner, War Admiral. Grantland Rice, racing columnist of the era, wrote that the crowd was "keyed to the highest tension I have ever seen in sport."

Hillenbrand's story is not only about the rags-to-riches racehorse, but also about the men who opened up the doors to fame for him. Her poignant writing style gives the story authenticity, with a craft so many writers strive for, but never achieve.

Tomlinson cited the opening lines in Hillenbrand's preface as one of the most enticing paragraphs:

"In 1938, near the end of the decade of monumental turmoil, the year's number-one newsmaker was not Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hitler, or Mussolini. It wasn't Pope Pius XI, nor was it Lou Gehrig, Howard Hughes, or Clark Gable. The subject of the most newspaper column inches in 1938 wasn't even a person. It was an undersized, crooked-legged racehorse named Seabiscuit. In the latter half of the Depression, Seabiscuit was nothing short of a cultural icon in America, enjoying adulation so intense and broad-based that it transcended sport."

Beyer particularly enjoyed her description of trainer Tom Smith:

"People merely brushed up against him. Only the horses seemed to know him well. They had been the quiet study of his life. He had grown up in a world in which horsemanship was as essential as breathing. Born with a prodigy's intuitive understanding of the animals, he had devoted himself to them so wholeheartedly that he was incomplete without them. By nature or by exposure he had become like them, in their understatement, their honesty, their blunt assertion of will. In the company of men, Smith's demeanor was clipped and bristly. With horses, he was gracefully at ease."

Random House has produced 75,000 copies of Seabiscuit and Universal Studios is presently working on a motion picture with Hillenbrand's help on the screenplay.