Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand 2001, 399pg

American History and Horse Racing  21/5/19

In 1938 with war looming in Europe the articles that filled the US press most was about the racing horse Seabiscuit.
Lou Gehrig leading baseball player for the Yankees. Died in 1941 aged 38 was a smaller press story.
Charles Howard had set up a bicycle shop but people who had just bought cars never knew how to fix them and so came to him. He got a Buick dealership from Will Durand in Detroit and had 3 cars.
1906 April 18 the great earthquake/fire of San Francisco and the horses panicked but his 3 cars were used as ambulances. To advertise he became a car racer. He gave free lesson on driving to buyers and took horses are a trade in and got GM dealership and was the biggest car seller in the world.
1928  after his son died in an accident, paid for a hospital to be build in Willits.
1920 Prohibition and all closed on Sundays so people crossed the border to Mexico to Tijuana.
1933 Wagering on horses legalized in California
1900 Tom Smith had made a good living taming mustangs and selling them to the British cavalry for the Boer War.
Red Pollard loved horses and literature and had Shakespeare and poetry books with him but was too active to do formal studying. Many of the jockeys were underage orphans either abandoned or ran away from their families. Few had decent schooling.  They had to starve themselves to keep their weight down and many wrecked their health through malnutrition as a result, and their mental stability. They had not health care many got hurt and had no friend to get them to hospital. If they fell off a horse they could be crushed by those following. The boss would look at a teenagers foot size as he did not want to invest into somebody who would grow too big.
1934 In Tijuana an enormous pile of muck taken out of the stable and never removed was flooded into the race course destroying it. At the same time Mexico stopped horse racing where a long time revolution was still going on.
Smith recognised that Seabiscuit sired by Hard Tack was a leading racer that nobody could control and were terrified of , he immediately brought in Pumpkin to be a companion and worked on him. Most horses can lock their knees and sleep standing up not this horse that slept on the bedding. Grog was also an offspring of Hard Tack and acted as a Seabiscuit double to distract the press. In one race a stone shot up from a horse hoof hit Reds right eye and he became blind there but kept it a secret.
Before 1936 people who owned radios in rural areas spent a lot on batteries but after1936 electrification was brought to these areas, also cars had radios and radios became cheap so 90% of the population were connected by 1939.
1937 Samuel Riddler was the most important horse owner with Man-O-War but when it was 3 years old he refused to allow it to run with an impost/handicap and used it to breed War Admiral. Alfred Vanderbilt heir to the Railway company as well as the Bromo Seltzer fortune. His father died on the torpedoed  Lusitania 1915. He used his fortune to get controlling share of Pimlico Race Course Baltimore.
There was supposed to be a race where Seabiscuit would be against War Admiral but it was wet and Red road  a horse suited to a slow course. there was an accident and he was run over and broke ribs and shoulder. Woolf took over as Jockey lacked the fine skill for this peculiar horse and came 2nd. Red recovered and returned to the job did a friend a favour by taking his horse for a run and this horse bolted and caused Red to break his leg badly.
A race was set up between Seabiscuit and War Admiral. It was a low wager and not in the starter stall but using a bell. Red told Woolf  you get ahead and the let Seabiscuit see the other horses eye and he will make sure he wins and he did by 4 lengths. The whole country took sides and rumours filled press. War Admirals jockey said I got him to look at the Seabiscuit's eye but it did not help, instead it upset the horse.
Horses win a race by a nose, a head, a neck or half length, length which is approximately 8 feet or 2.4 meters an approx. measurement from nose to tail. Seabiscuit was retired in 1940 at the age of 6 most race horses  don't run beyond 5 years. None of Seabiscuits  offspring were very good racers.
Only later did the Jockeys organize a fund for hurt members and Red suffered from pain and alcoholism and lived to the age of 70.