In honour of the Kentucky Derby, Andrew and I watched Seabiscuit on Saturday night. I had seen it many, many years ago and remembered very little. I understand why the movie was well-received, though I could do without the profanity and I can’t bear to watch the boxing scenes…
Without further ado, here are seven things you may or may not know about Seabiscuit and horse racing. All quotations from Wikipedia. 🙂
Why is Seabiscuit famous? He was the American Horse of the Year in 1938 and the top-earning race horse up to the 1940s. He was a small horse and considered lazy before he “became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression.”
His grandsire was Man o’ War, “widely regarded as the greatest racehorse of all time.” Seabiscuit himself sired 108 foals, including two “moderately successful racehorses”: Sea Sovereign and Sea Swallow.
War Admiral, Seabiscuit’s rival in the “Match Race of the Century,” was sired by Man o’ War. (So Seabiscuit’s uncle? Family trees must be extensive.)
Seabiscuit: An American Legend (1999) was written by Laura Hillenbrand, who also wrote Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010). She dropped out of college at age 19 due to chronic fatigue syndrome, which she has struggled with ever since.
Red Pollard, Seabiscuit’s main jockey, was born in Edmonton. His family was affluent until the North Saskatchewan River flood of 1915 destroyed their brickyard and threw them into poverty.
Seabiscuit appeared on a US postage stamp “after an eight-year-long grassroots effort by Maggie Van Ostrand and Chuck Lustick.” (!)
In a handicap race, “each horse must carry a specified weight called the impost, assigned by the racing secretary or steward based on factors such as past performances, so as to equalize the chances of the competitors. To supplement the combined weight of jockey and saddle, up to the assigned impost, lead weights are carried in saddle pads with pockets, called lead pads.”