![]() ![]() Seabiscuit was descended from the legendary Man o' War and possessed the temperamental imperiousness of all that great horse's offspring. He found what he was looking for when he encountered Seabiscuit in 1936 at Suffolk Downs racetrack outside Boston. Hired by Howard to be his trainer in 1934, and with the tycoon's money at his disposal, Smith nevertheless preferred taking on horses that were considered bargains - not as a way to save money, but because those animals' talents were overlooked. He became known as a healer as much as a trainer, mending hurt horses with his homemade liniments and, seemingly, the empathy of his touch. Taciturn to the point of utter silence, Smith did his talking to horses, whom he believed could be communicated with if you just bothered to observe them. Smith, the genuine version of the sort of character Cormac McCarthy fakes, was a man who bridged two epochs, having gone from being a young plainsman in the frontier days of the American West to training horses for the British cavalry in the Boer War to training horses for rodeos and races. The combination of the money he accumulated and the need to find an escape after the death of a beloved son led Howard to thoroughbred racing, and eventually to Tom Smith. He made his fortune in the aftermath of the city's catastrophic 1906 earthquake, when automobiles ceased being novelties and became the only possible means of transporting the dead and injured. The bicycle repair shop he opened in 1903 San Francisco bloomed into a Buick dealership after Howard began servicing the few autos that existed in the city. The book itself is also Hillenbrand's love song for those men and for the magnificent creature himself, who became something like the familiar of his human companions, a protective spirit in the face of ridiculous odds and cruel luck.Ĭharles Howard, the first to enter the picture in "Seabiscuit," thrived on bad odds. "Seabiscuit" not only records the love song of three men - owner, trainer and jockey - for an oddly shaped horse who possessed potential visible only to them. The music that arises from the pages of "Seabiscuit" may be from the past, but it's no less sweet or clear. It would be next to Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole or Lee Wiley CDs as well - anywhere you'd go to look for love songs. Seabiscuit is an inspiring tale of unlikely heroes, a classic story of three embattled individuals and a remarkable racehorse overcoming the odds in the Great Depression.Ideally, you wouldn't just find Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" in bookstores. In four tumultuous years, the rags-to-riches horse overcame a phenomenal run of misfortune to emerge as an American cultural icon, drawing an immense following, prompting an avalanche of merchandising, and establishing himself as the single biggest newsmaker of 1938-receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or any other public figure. Forming an improbable partnership, they transformed the horse into one of the most extraordinary competitors in sports history. In the sultry summer of 1936, the lives of these men converged around a bad-legged, floundering racehorse named Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit tells the story of three remarkable men: Charles Howard, a bicycle repairman who made a fortune by introducing the automobile to the American West Red Pollard, a failed prizefighter and failing jockey who was abandoned as a boy at a makeshift racetrack and Tom Smith, an enigmatic mustang breaker who came from the vanishing frontier, bearing generations of lost wisdom about the secrets of horses. ![]() Named one of the best books of the year by more than twenty publications-including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, People, USA Today, and The Economist-Seabiscuit was also honored as the BookSense Nonfiction Book of the Year and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and was a finalist for several other major prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.įor this lavishly illustrated special edition, author Laura Hillenbrand has written a new Introduction and selected nearly 150 rare photographs from historic archives and private collections. ![]() The spellbinding true story of how three men and a great racehorse captivated a nation, Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit: An American Legend became an immediate number one bestseller and cultural phenomenon upon its publication in 2001. A deluxe illustrated edition of one of the most beloved books of our time, with nearly 150 historic photographs personally selected by the author ![]()
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