Hillenbrand has a grand story to tell, though the manner of the telling is sometimes a little too grand for its own good. When the crunch came, the Biscuit took the spoils in a thrilling race. Seabiscuit was based in the west, War Admiral was the pride of the east, and the two warriors (both descendants of Man o'War) circled each other for a year before their owners agreed to let them meet. All America hugged its radios to hear (and thus be part of) the Biscuit's immortal clash with arch-rival War Admiral in 1938.

Seabiscuit never enjoyed the dominance of an Arkle or Golden Miller, but as the ugly duckling come good and a horse with a huge heart he became not just his country's champion but the custodian of its dreams - Babe Ruth without the booze.Īmerica in the 1930s also had a booming radio industry, and racing is a great radio sport: two minutes of concentrated action, with the rhythmic commentary reaching a thunderous climax in the closing strides. Seabiscuit's story in many ways parallels that of Phar Lap: an unprepossessing colt of whom little was expected but who went on to captivate a nation in the throes of the Depression. The abiding heroes are Man o'War, Seabiscuit, Secretariat and Cigar, and the second of that illustrious quartet is the subject of Laura Hillenbrand's loving study. In the US, steeplechasing is less prominent, and the great flat-racing champions have had the field to themselves. We admire great flat horses - Sea Bird, Shergar, Sir Ivor, Nijinsky, this year's champion Galileo - but we adore those horses that slog through the mud and mist of winter. The roar that greets the start of the National resounds across the country: it remains a truly national event. The British and Irish love steeplechasers: not just Arkle, but Red Rum, Desert Orchid and Golden Miller (who in the 1930s won five successive Cheltenham Gold Cups). The joke was that had he stood for the Irish presidency, he would have won that too. Our equivalent of Phar Lap (though the Aussie horse raced on the flat) is the Irish steeplechaser Arkle, who won three successive Cheltenham Gold Cups in the mid-1960s and was so far ahead of his rivals that the handicapping rules had to be rewritten to give him extra weight. He died in 1932 aged only five, and his skeleton remains the Museum of Victoria's most popular exhibit. When Sir Donald Bradman died in February, the only comparable Aussie hero commentators could summon up was Phar Lap, a legend of the Australian track who won 37 of his 51 races, including 14 in a row. Horses exercise a powerful hold over the public imagination.

Sea biscuit book