![]() At the World's Fair Handicap (Bay Meadows' most prestigious stakes race), Seabiscuit led throughout. Despite starting badly and carrying the top weight of 116 pounds (53 kg), Seabiscuit won by five lengths. The first was the $2,700 Bay Bridge Handicap, run over one-mile (1.6 km). His last two races of the year were at Bay Meadows racetrack in San Mateo, California. In early November 1936, Howard and Smith shipped the horse to California by rail. Improvements came quickly, and in their remaining eight races in the East, Seabiscuit and Pollard won several times, including the Detroit Governor's Handicap (worth $5,600) and the Scarsdale Handicap ($7,300) at Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, New York. On August 22, 1936, they raced Seabiscuit for the first time. Smith paired the horse with Canadian jockey Red Pollard (1909–1981), who had experience racing in the West and in Mexico. Howard assigned Seabiscuit to a new trainer, Tom Smith, who, with his unorthodox training methods, gradually brought Seabiscuit out of his lethargy. 1936/1937: The beginning of success Seabiscuit with trainer Tom Smith Howard for $8,000 at Saratoga, in August. His owners sold the horse to automobile entrepreneur Charles S. That was where trainer Tom Smith first laid eyes on Seabiscuit. One of those races was a cheap allowance race on the "sweltering afternoon of June 29," 1936, at Suffolk Downs. The colt ran 12 times in less than four months, winning four times. The next season started with a similar pattern. His last two wins as a two-year-old came in minor stakes races. While Seabiscuit had not lived up to his racing potential, he was not the poor performer Fitzsimmons had taken him for. These included three claiming races, in which he could have been purchased for $2,500, but he had no takers. However, Seabiscuit began to gain attention after winning two races at Narragansett Park and setting a new track record in the second-Claiming Stakes race.Īs a two-year-old, Seabiscuit raced 35 times (a heavy racing schedule), coming in first five times and finishing second seven times. After that, Fitzsimmons did not spend much time on him, and the horse was sometimes the butt of stable jokes. He failed to win any of his first 17 races, usually finishing back in the field. Seabiscuit was relegated to a heavy schedule of smaller races. Fitzsimmons devoted most of his time to training Omaha, who won the 1935 Triple Crown. Fitzsimmons saw some potential in Seabiscuit but felt the horse was too lazy. Initially, Seabiscuit was owned by the powerful Wheatley Stable and trained by "Sunny Jim" Fitzsimmons, who had taken Gallant Fox to the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. He was undersized, knobby-kneed, and given to sleeping and eating for long periods. The bay colt grew up on Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, where he was trained. Seabiscuit was named for his father, as hardtack or "sea biscuit" is the name for a type of cracker eaten by sailors. Seabiscuit was foaled in Lexington, Kentucky, on May 23, 1933, from the mare Swing On and sire Hard Tack, a son of Man o' War. Seabiscuit has been the subject of numerous books and films, including Seabiscuit: the Lost Documentary (1939) the Shirley Temple film The Story of Seabiscuit (1949) a book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend (1999) by Laura Hillenbrand and a film adaptation of Hillenbrand's book, Seabiscuit (2003), that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.Įarly days Seabiscuit with owner Charles Howard He beat the 1937 Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, by four lengths in a two-horse special at Pimlico and was voted American Horse of the Year for 1938.Ī small horse, at 15.2 hands high, Seabiscuit had an inauspicious start to his racing career, winning only a quarter of his first 40 races, but became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. Seabiscuit (– May 17, 1947) was a champion thoroughbred racehorse in the United States who became the top money-winning racehorse up to the 1940s. Grade II Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack (2014– ) Life-size statues at Santa Anita Park and Saratoga Springs
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