This time, they vowed, Seabiscuit would win. But as the race drew near, their confidence began to wane. Days of drenching rains turned the track to a swamp, and Seabiscuit — never at his best in the mud — was scratched from one warm-up after another. It was a decision he would come to regret. Halfway around the turn, Fair Knightess clipped the heels of the horse in front of her and tumbled, pitching Pollard over her head and crushing him beneath her as she thudded to the ground. The hundred-grander — and his chance to redeem the loss to Rosemont — was gone.
Laura Hillenbrand, Author : During his time in the hospital, it tortured him to not be out there with the horse. This was a very unfortunate man; he was a very tormented man. And was more star-crossed than any athlete I know of. That defined him, that was what he was. Narrator : Three days later, his left arm in traction, Pollard made it clear that there was only one jockey who could replace him — his old friend, George Monroe Woolf.
I thought he was perfection in motion, really. To watch George Woolf ride, really to watch him coming down the stretch on a horse, boy he, he looked beautiful to me. Gene Smith, Writer : A great jockey is a genius. What a jockey needs to do is have supreme balance. He has to have the fingers of a great pianist in order to sense through the reins what the horse is capable of.
The jockey through his knees senses what the horse is doing. The only part of the jockey that never touches anything is the part that should normally go into the saddle. When to whip. When to hold back. To go inside. To go outside. To go through an opening this big where your elbows brush the jock next to you at forty-something miles an hour, and your stirrups clang against his stirrup, all of this a pound man on top on a 1,pound horse.
Or else, no sense. The limit hinged on the ranking of the mount — the better the horse, the higher the weight he was assigned to carry, the heavier the jockey could be. But even the best horses seldom carried a rider who tipped the scales at more than pounds. If a jockey wanted to ride with any kind of regularity, he had to whittle down to at least Gene Smith, Writer : Weight can stop a freight train is an old racetrack expression.
Two or three pounds is over the assigned weight. Newsreel archival : The thermometer reads a hundred and forty, but Billy Passmore lies under a blanket — too much breakfast. Narrator : George Woolf weighed in at pounds — five less than the recently-crowned Miss America, but hefty by turf standards. While lighter jockeys rode more than a thousand races a year, Woolf averaged fewer than But his winning-average was so high that he still ranked among the best money-riders in the country.
Not surprisingly, Woolf was confident about the hundred-grander. The famous Seabiscuit jams his way through the bunch as he starts his drive toward the leaders. But Stagehand plods along steadily on the outside getting positioned for one of the greatest stretch duels in handicap history.
Seabiscuit and Stagehand hook the pace together and it boils down to a thrilling two-horse race. Newsreel archival : Seabiscuit is back about ninth, now Georgie Woolf has got him clear and trying to fight his way through there….
Leonard Dorfman, Trainer : This horse, with pounds on his back, spotting the other horse 30 pounds and making that big move to pass all those horses and go to the front and then have Stagehand come running at him like he was gonna run right by him and then Seabiscuit just took off. Newsreel archival : And now there goes Seabiscuit going to the front, but look out for Stagehand…. Farrell Jones, Former Jockey : It was unbelievable to me this day, what happened.
He kept running; he kept running even after he got away from the trouble. He did that. He was phenomenal. It was an opinion that would be voiced over and over again, in newspapers from Syracuse to Sacramento. Never before had a race horse been so widely praised for losing. Gene Smith, Writer : You have a downtrodden, Charlie Chaplin-esque figure who comes out of the mire and the sorry exploitation of the little man.
He did it. Laura Hillenbrand, Author : He drew enormous crowds. People would crowd by the railroad tracks when he went across the country. In little remote towns, people would crowd up next to the train to see if they could get a little glimpse of him.
Laura Hillenbrand, Author : He was merchandised to a phenomenal degree. There were at least five Seabiscuit board games. There was a Seabiscuit pinball machine. He had his own line of oranges. He endorsed dry-cleaning services and hotels, absolutely everything. He was a superstar. He would have been a superstar in any era, but he came along at a time when America was desperate for inspiring heroes. Heroes that looked like America.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is Ken Carpenter greeting you from Santa Anita racecourse in Arcadia California…. Seabiscuit gets a big hand. I can see them applauding…. Seabiscuit carries his top weight of lbs. Laura Hillenbrand, Author : At the beginning of his career, about half the people in America had radios.
By the end of it, virtually everybody did, and there were eight million sets in cars. Laura Hillenbrand, Author : Seabiscuit raced during the racing season about once a week, so it became an American ritual to gather around the radio and listen to him run and it has a lot to do with why he became such a huge celebrity in America.
He was one of the first big radio stars. All over the country, magazines and newspapers featured side-by-side photographs of the celebrity horses, offering endless comparisons of their relative size and speed and merits. Sportswriters furiously polled fans for their predictions, and composed lengthy editorials on the likely outcome of the race. Came from an illustrious background. He came from an aristocratic barn.
He looked like he ought to be drawing a cart with ice behind it some place. Six days before the race, a fully-recovered Pollard did an old friend a favor and agreed to work his green two-year-old colt.
Halfway around the oval, the horse spooked, crashed through the rail, and tore off in the direction of the barns. As he tried to cut between two sheds, he skidded sideways, smashed into a corner, then crumpled in a heap. At the far end of the shed row, they heard the screams. He had such a lot of bad luck with regards to spills. And my father would get so enraged if you ever said, if anyone ever said, you know that he fell off a horse. I was thrown! Especially when they tore his leg open — when the bones were fractured.
Other seasons. American Experience Season 1. Available on HoloLens. Mobile device. Xbox Description Beginning with the stock market collapse in Crash of , the series looks at the creation of FDRs Tree Army in Civilian Conservation Corps; the construction of one of the greatest engineering projects of the modern era in Hoover Dam; the impact of the catastrophic drought that transformed the plains in Surviving the Dust Bowl; and an unlikely hero that gave downtrodden Americans hope in Seabiscuit.
Episodes 1. The Crash of Civilian Conservation Corps. Then he'll push that button, the bell will ring, and they'll be on their way. We don't have any starting barriers now, as you know. Here they go. And they're on their way down the stretch. The break was good; every horse got a chance just as they left there. As they come down here to the eighth pole, it is Time Supply and Special Agent. Special Agent is trying to force his way to the front and he's going to do a good job of it as they pass the stands.
Here on the outside comes Rosemont in a good position. And as they go by me it is Special Agent on the lead by one length. Special Agent has the lead and then comes Time Supply in second place right along beside him. Going to the first turn is Special Agent by a length.
Time Supply is second and on the outside of him is Accolade. And Boxthorn is close up. Far back in the crowd, on the inside, in about twelfth place is Red Rain. Up there close is Rosemont in about sixth place. They're going into the stretch; they've gone half a mile. And the time for the first quarter over this track was 22 and two fifths seconds, the half in 45 and four.
They're turning into the backstretch with Special Agent on the lead. Special Agent has a lead now of one length and a half. Right behind him comes Time Supply. And in there, slipping through on the inside is Download the free plug-in from Real. Back to Stats.
Read Newspaper Account Link to original race coverage. Feature Feedback Tell us what you think about "Races on the Radio. Clem McCarthy: They're off! And they got away right together, with Seabiscuit promptly shut off in between horses. Pompoon got clear. The horse that was first away was Whichcee, and then Primulus and Aneroid. Aneroid on the outside, from third place, is now stepping on the lead. And here they come to the stand with Aneroid getting ready to show the lead.
And after Top Row comes Count Atlas is up there close and Townsman. Now they're going around that lower turn, they've gone a quarter of a mile, and Top Row has slipped through on the inside, fighting for the lead, but he can't make it. Now Whichcee is up there fighting. It's Whichcee and Aneroid out there setting the pace. Woodberry is third.
And after them comes, right in there, is Count Atlas and Primulus. There goes Pompoon on the outside and Seabiscuit is moving up also. Seabiscuit is back about ninth.
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