Book summaryLaura Hillenbrand, an award-winning racing journalist, delivers an in-depth, winning biography of a horse, detailing the lives of three men: Tom Smith, a silent, eccentric trainer; Charles Howard, a wealthy horseowner; and Red Pollard, a half-blind, down-on-his-luck jockey, whose combined talents produced an unlikely champion. The struggles of Seabiscuit and his jockey paralleled those of an entire nation--which was suffering under the Depression and the threat of war--and caught its attention; in 1938 the horse reportedly received more newspaper coverage than Roosevelt, Hitler, or Mussolini. In a work that gives an impressive sense of a particular horse, the sport, the racetrack milieu, and the mood of the country during the time, the author inspires admiration and respect for the implausible champion and his team, and also does a great service to sportswriting. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001. Media reviews"[A]n absorbing book that stands as the model of sportswriting at its best." |
Seabiscuit An American Legendby Hillenbrand, Laura
Book desription: Ballantine Books. A gently used paperback with light edgewear. Spine smooth and tight. No . marks.. 2002. Paperback. 0449005615 . 0.94 x 8.14 x 5.52 Inches, 399 p., Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:<br><br>Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon. <br><br>Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i> .
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