seabiscuit.

​At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, the Racing Post is filling the Covid-19 void with race-cards from such exotic American racecourses as Will Rogers Down, Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream. What has caught my eye is that the main fare at these race-tracks are claiming races of different hues, rarely a race over further than a mile and no apprentice races, in fact no riders with a claim at all. By chance, and purely coincidental, I hope, is that for the past few weeks (I am these days a slow reader) my bedtime reading has been Laura Hillenbrand’s book ‘Seabiscuit’ (Three Men and a Racehorse). I remain none the wiser about American racing.
In Laura Hillenbrand’s book there is no reference to medication apart from the home-brewed remedies of Seabiscuit’s trainer Tom Smith. I suspect it was ever the case in American racing that medication, or dope as we might call it, was typically used from the get-go, especially if you read George Lambton’s autobiography ‘Men and Horses I Have Known’ in which he goes into great detail how he exposed the practices (there were not actually illegal at the time) of American trainers who came over here to train in the early part of last century. Seabiscuit, we must assume, ran clean. It is the aspect of American racing that I deplore, just ahead of the unremitting surfaces they race on, the dirt being unkinder to the welfare of the horse than either what is referred to as ‘all-weather’ or grass.
In fact, racing in America is as different to what is on offer in Europe as steeplechasing is to three-day-events. They use different surfaces, they use Lasix and other race-day medications, they value speed over stamina, the stopwatch over the experience of the eye. So, it is well nigh impossible have an authoritative opinion as to whether Man o’War, for instance was, as the Americans would demand, the best flat racehorse in history. Never as any of the truly great American horses ventured across to Europe to take on the best Ireland, France or Great Britain has to offer, though it has to admitted that when the best of the European horses have tried their luck at the Breeders Cup they have not shown up too well.
To return to Seabiscuit: he ran, what for this day and age seems a ridiculous amount of times, 89 and won 33 races. He lumped huge weights in the top handicaps on the Western side of America – it was very much an East-West divide back in those days, with the East thinking itself superior – though before Tom Smith claimed him out of a claiming race his record was a very moderate 4 from 40. He was the Cinderella horse, the underdog made good.
At the time War Admiral, the Triple Crown winner, was the best horse racing in America and the more Seabiscuit won the more race-fans clamoured for the two to meet. They were matched-up several times only for either Seabiscuit to be scratched due to the wet conditions he hated or War Admiral’s owner deciding upon an easier option. Eventually, at Pimlico, in a match race with a hundred-thousand-dollar first prize, they met, drawing 40,000 to the racetrack, with 4-million listening to their radios. War Admiral was 4/1 on, yet superior tactics won the day for Seabiscuit, by 4-lengths.
Soon after the match-race, Seabiscuit suffered a ruptured suspensory ligament, during which time, as Tom Smith nursed him back to soundness, he covered 7 of his owner’s mares. In 1940, after two preparatory races, Seabiscuit, after twice finishing runner-up, always giving away prodigious amounts of weight and enduring foul-play by his opponent’s jockeys (no patrol camera in those days), he finally won the Santa Anita Handicap, the major race in the West. I wonder if it still exists and carries the same cache? He retired to stud straight afterwards, though he failed to sire a colt or filly anywhere close to his brilliance.
He inspired 5 documentaries, 3 feature films, including one with Shirley Temple, 3 books, a postage stamp and 6 statues. He was, and remains, the most iconic name in American racing history. But how does he compare to other American horses or indeed horses trained this side of the water?
Blood Horse magazine conducted a poll in which he featured only in 13th position, a place ahead of Cigar. Man O’War came top, followed by Secretariat and Kelso. Yet he was also rated one of the great athletes of his era and certainly the biggest box-office draw. 78,000 watched his final race. His greatness is based not on the races he won but the weight he gave away in narrow defeats, as well as his victories, of course, much the same as it is with Arkle in this country. Something Secretariat and other horses above him in the Blood Horse poll did not have to endure.
Just another example of why horses who win races their superiority ensures they ought to win – I give again the example of Sea The Stars who only won a race in which he either received weight or ran on equal weights, never giving away weight – should not be deemed in the truly great category of the thoroughbred as it skews the pantheon of racing history. Also, the likes of Seabiscuit raced for many seasons, never shirking the issue and were not retired fit and sound to the breeding sheds after one season of serious racing. But today is a different world to yesterday, isn’t it?