Seabiscuit: America's Legendary Racehorse (FULL MOVIE)

in the dark days of America's Great Depression with a war in Europe on the horizon Americans were anxious for relief and eager to find hope they found escape in an unlikely hero a funny-looking horse deep in a losing streak whose rise to fame and fortune mirrored all they could hope for Seabiscuit was the name they shouted tens of thousands packed the stands to see him race millions tune in by radio his story enthralled the nation [Music] the story of Seabiscuit really captures the arts of America and it's it's the classic Cinderella story the horse that really has very little going for him I came from back east running and cheap claiming races didn't have the best pedigree in the world came to the west coast got in the right hands and became a champion racehorse I attempted Seabiscuit walked and mortar he was my hero Lilia he was always my favorite horse because he was like a working man's horse or a blue-collar horse I would kind of call him because he came up from the clayman ranks to be one of our greatest sources that America ever saw raised I think Seabiscuit came around when the country needed him the most it was the timing you know depression it just was a time that was needed Seabiscuit became famous during the worst part of the Depression when there was huge unemployment and things looked bad I mean America needed a hero a story of Seabiscuit is a true cinderella story for everyone involved the jockey his owner and trainer the country fell in love with this horse I mean believe it or not Seabiscuit was the number one news maker of 1938 FDR was second and Hitler was third [Music] in the 30s and 40s you know thoroughbred horse racing was the number one sport in America it was extremely popular it was very common to have 40 50 thousand people come to the races on a weekend sometimes even 60 75,000 racing in those days was that was the thing I mean everybody went to the racetrack Clark Gable Victor Mature Humphrey Bogart they all came back this is a time before sports on television radio was it horse-racing on the radio is popular nationwide and it was a natural Seabiscuit was a major star all-time Pirates went out to sea in everything they couldn't keep regular food so they gave him these little biscuits to eat and they would stay for months and months and they called him what do you want what he got for rice and they said we got sea biscuits and that's how he got his name Seabiscuit was a kind of a short chunky horse built a little more like a quarter horse than some of the third-best but he did have a real good long lip the good shoulder but his knees he knuckle over he's kind of calf need he was strongly built but he wasn't a beautiful he was Bakke you know he had good shoulders and get your rear end on him Seabiscuit was really one of the greatest horses I've ever looked at and Confirmation wise he was bucked over the knee in front and people thought that was bad that is that's one of the best thing you can ever happen to us to give him a little bump over the knee because of the pressure on the knee what his bucked over isn't there as bad if it goes back in the in the joint and and he had that and I think that's part of why he lasted this so good he must have been a pretty sound horse because you know he ran 35 times as a two-year-old that's all I that's unheard of nowadays seevis get the running 35 times when he's a two-year-old now if that horse had been trying to run he wouldn't made it but he wasn't trying to run he wasn't doing his best that horse was fooling around this horse Seabiscuit he was in New York the trainer that had him at that time was considered the Dean of trainers but he couldn't get that horse to do anything he wouldn't work good he wouldn't do anything and I free yet 25 or 30 he races and he couldn't beat anybody sunny Jim Fitzsimmons Seabiscuit's first trainer just didn't understand how to deal with this horse that was so difficult I mean it wasn't until his 17th race that Seabiscuit finally won he had run in 6 claiming races and he was never claimed occasionally Seabiscuit under Fitzsimmons as his trainer would burn up the track I mean this horse was really fast and when he finally won a race he actually broke the track record he ran fast when he wanted to but only only we felt like it which was not very often [Music] after a while Fitzsimmons was starting to like Seabiscuit and I think he even figured him out but on the day Seabiscuit was put up for sale Fitzsimmons didn't put up a bid and probably later regretted it I wish I'd have been here when that horse ran certainly I also wish that I had had a chance to hear the radio broadcasts it's my understanding that he really made a quite an impression on the country when he became a hero and won all those races it's probably more popular than Babe Ruth in the 30s well it won the big cap here in 1940 after an injury so it made a tremendous comeback it was the people's choice during the Depression when they needed a you know like an example of courage and a winner so they chose they got behind that horse and rallied all through three or four years of Seabiscuit running and which made it at that time the horse that liked me the most money poor Seabiscuit was a bad horse I made money with him before he's a bad heart bet on [Music] the story of Seabiscuit really is something that captures I think the imagination of all of America well so does the the horseman and the people that were involved with Seabiscuit from the Howards to to red Pollard to the trainer I think it was it's something that really captures people's imagination in the summer of 1936 the howard's headed east to find resources for their stable they first saw Seabiscuit in a claiming race not impressed mrs. Howard bet Charles a lemonade the horse would lose he won and soon found a new home in the Howard barn [Music] the first time I saw Seabiscuit was it Saratoga and they bought him and it was leading back to the barn and I looked out there and seen him leading his horse and I said yeah they bought a new new saddle pony see I couldn't take that back you know what I mean they give 7501 and he went from there so I went to work for CS Arden Tom Smith the fall of 36 Tom Smith and mr. hard they bought Seabiscuit the Saratoga Springs from the wheely stable and Fitzsimmons was the trainer and that they shipped on out to California and mr. Howard finally wound up with me that's how he got it so this this trainer Thomas Smith I don't know what he did to the horse but there's no such a thing as magic with the horse but he fooled with a horse and got him to run in and he just kept getting better and better and better and it's history was that horse dead Tom Smith Seabiscuit's new trainer was the ultimate horseman I mean he was a cowboy out of the Old West nobody understood horses better than him I think he understood horses better than people he certainly liked horses more I mean Smith spent most of his life on the Colorado Mustang ranges where he worked in the Wild West shows he was the real horse whisperer and when he got a new horse he would go into a stall and he would squat down on the floor and sit there for hours without moving I mean without saying a word and he would walk out and he would understand the horse completely when Smith first met Seabiscuit he found a horse that was really confused and not very happy I mean Seabiscuit wouldn't eat he circled his stall 24 hours a day he was at least 200 pounds underweight and every time Seabiscuit saw a saddle and bridle he would become extremely nervous no wonder he never won a race Tom Smith he made people do things his way if he wanted a good work in Seabiscuit he would maybe take two other horses out in the morning to pick him up at different parts of the racetrack to go on and make him work fast goes by himself Seabiscuit wouldn't get the time that he wanted him to have and he'd put him against the watch and other horses and that's how he trained him Smith realized that Seabiscuit needed to learn to run for the joy of it not because he was being whacked 46 times as he was running down the stretch and the day that Seabiscuit learned to love running was the most important day of his career I mean from what I have heard the big change happens on a single workout it was like the fourth day that Smith put an exercise rider on him and he sent him out to the track and everything the writer wanted Seabiscuit would do the opposite Seabiscuit fought the rider any way he could and he loved it Smith totally knew what was going on and he gave a really strange order to the rider which was let him go let him do it every once so the rider just dropped the reins and sat there and see musket went nuts Seabiscuit was frustrated because he got satisfaction by fighting his rider and trainer and now there was like nobody to fight so finally he just stopped and walked back to his barn and I mean there was nowhere else to go so when Seabiscuit got to barn there was Smith standing there with a carrot he rewarded him and from that day on Seabiscuit trusted and loved Smith Seabiscuit discovered how much he loved to run and boy did they have a speed demon on their hands he was the fastest horse around come on good girl come on good girl some of the other things that Tom did with him was train him in the dark he'd hide him in the dark he didn't want nobody know because he didn't want him to think that horse was doing so good that they'd raised him up this weight when they handicapped a baby and he was hiding him all the time he's here every place they went they people who go out there to see Stephen because it's never seen me to go to the dark with him they didn't call him silent Tom for nothing I mean he didn't like the press and he would do whatever he could to mess with them he was once asked to give a long description of the famous see this kid tom said he's a horse and walked away it means they called him silent time because they couldn't get him to say anything and especially the press is I remember they used to be upset with him you know all the time because they'd ask him a question and even even answer Charles says Howard did all the talking I guess see us Howard he was another that he loved to come about around the barn eight of these horses he was a very quiet man also very very gentlemanly he had the automobile agency in San Francisco at that time he bought a certain kind of a car you had to go through him so he was a real nice fella he was very interested in racing and he and Tom was the kind of trainer owner that both got along real well that turned out to be very successful for both of them Charles Howard who was Seabiscuit's owner was a real interesting guy he was a Calvary man in the spanish-american war and when he first came to San Francisco California in 1903 he worked repairing bicycles the automobile showed up at about the same time and they were always breaking down I mean people thought that if Charles could fix bicycles then maybe he could fix broken down cars so he fixed them up and he fell in love with them and then he opened up a car dealership and he became one of the richest men in the United States within three months of entering Howard's stable Seabiscuit was winning races around the country they were running whatever it was any time it was you know he'd go any place to run that horse he'd go to New York and in them days they'd take them they didn't have no airplanes that he got now they put him on the train and I rode that train one time back and forth with him and it was six days and he got old right now you couldn't take a bad but nothing he's riding in the car with that horse and that horse eh he was happy all the way all the way down and all the way back he didn't care about nothing he was just a very unusual noise personality-wise Seabiscuit was a real good doer he was a heavy eater Tom Smith used to have to muslin kind of in between meals to keep him from eating too much if it didn't put the food into him it he did he's betting uneven so they used to put a muzzle on him in between feeding time and just certain times that day they'd let him eat otherwise he'd put on too much weight whitey was having a lot of time that was his groom was over feeding him and the husband got a little heavy nobody could talk to that groom too good you know it he was he was gonna do what he want to do that horse but they sent mrs. hard to talk back to talk to that groom and tell me he's gonna have to stop feeding that or as much as they're gonna let him go and he did slow down feeding the horse Seabiscuit was a hog and he would eat everything in sight I remember the groom why he tell me he's a winner would have to put the nut the muzzle on him and that was a problem Seabiscuit didn't like that Muslim Seabiscuit had two main writers red Pollard wrote in most often but George Woolf wrote him for his most famous races George Woolf was one of the greatest writers I ever saw and in this day and age he'd still be great he would wait on horses that were dead last April and let him run a thermometer in he did things was unbelievable on a horse he was great great horseman George Woolf he was a little different than all the other riders nothing bothered him he had a wonderful disposition he could be off not doing anything and comfort come back to the track and you'd think he'd been riding ever made he was riding in an era when when you just did whatever an owner would tell you and he was a little independent he would just ride the horses that he wanted to ride and he would sometimes just take off and disappear for a couple weeks that's when he had had it do you they call George Woolf the Iceman is he was like le della who said you know he could sit back there longer and wait longer than anybody else there you know and that's where and he was a cool customer he really was I've seen a lot of great jockeys pinkeye delusi nakatani but Wow watching those movies of George Woolf is amazing I mean he becomes he becomes one with the horse because of his diabetes Wolf's throw like one-third the number of horses the other jockeys did and still he would lead them in money one every single year he was he was a phenomenal athlete we hear he liked his Hennessey he loved his cars he had a great collection of state-of-the-art cars of that time you know he had a cord and there's pictures of him it at Indianapolis and everything else he just enjoyed life he was just quite a character I remember him very well because he had a car that I loved he had a powder-blue cord and it had these big pipes out on the side and everything and he wore cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and his cowboy boots have silver toes and silver heels on him and he was really a classy guy he was a dapper he was well-dressed and he and all the pictures you see in the scrapbooks and everything else I mean he was dressed to the T you know he had the hats and the suits and he was the ladies man and then later as he got older he did buy the Derby in Arcadia Derby restaurant and it pictured horses running out of a derby hat on the front of it for years the restaurant originally was Proctor's chicken house and it was on Foothill Boulevard and it was in probably the early 20s in a 28 when they widened Foothill Boulevard of route 66 they brought the restaurant down here in 28 it was Proctor's chicken house complete dinner 75 cents then in 38 George Woolf bought the restaurant for his retirement and he always said that he jinxed himself by naming the restaurant the Derby because he never won the big race the Kentucky Derby [Music] there's an apartment above the restaurant and George both lived up there throughout the years odd things have happened we used to have a bell that we would ring to give last call for our Daily Double and just during the evening that bell would ring when there was no one around it and we would have throughout the years bringing in crews at night to do remodeling and stuff and we had about four crews quit on us because they just they heard things and a few times I have stayed upstairs you could hear like footsteps going up the staircase near hangouts but he's very friendly it seems you know I mean is the closing managers always say good night to them when they leave [Music] Georgiy wolf was there an awful lot and they had of a man that played the piano and he'd had singer rounds around the piano and Georgia Woolf would come in there just dressed like he would be in the morning sometimes even whether he oh he loved to wear leather jackets that had the frills on the sides of them that a big old Texas hat then he was a man's man people really liked him because he could blend in and talk to anybody and I think he made jockeys jockeys more so than they had been before in the public eye nobody ever really talks about how difficult it was to be a jockey in the 1930s it was a very dangerous sport 19 jockeys were killed between 1935 and 1939 they didn't have safety vests then they didn't have the kind of modern-day helmets to help prevent serious injuries today I mean it's dangerous enough today but you had to be fearless to be a jockey back then jockeys were always getting injured there was no insurance they couldn't go to hospitals when they were hurt they could fall off a horse in the middle of the race and nobody even would go to pick them up and and what they had to do to lose weight oh my god it was really awful the jocks back then had to be even smaller than the jocks today we used to put road suits on the childbirth road suits on and after you had run maybe about the road surrounded you sit down and you open up your red suit and let the water drip out and do it up again and go on I never did myself but I seen some of them that went to the extents why did they'd be buried under a manure pile for so long so with the road suit on to take off the way I used to room with a jacket when I first came on the racetrack he would kill himself just to make a hundred and fifteen or sixteen he'd after he brought about ten months more he and sweated up and and just to ride one horse I have heard of some really unbelievable stories and jockeys would swallow tapeworm tablets they would sit for hours and steam boxes and run around the track wrapped in blankets they would binge and then purge they would take diuretics whatever it took I think that the jocks then were tougher than they are now I think the game was altogether different it is now trainers trained a little different those days and they do now they're trained pretty hard and run for the art out here now much different than the one is well I think in the old days they probably trained less and ran more they you know ran their horses probably continuously instead of now we we breeze him and we pouring their horses and Biggers there's more money to run that so they run hard every time yes I think that's probably a different type of horse they were in those days I think there was probably a handful of good ones the rest we're just mediocre horses so nowadays I think the competition is tougher I don't know if they're better but you know they run much faster than the old days it's hard to tell but now Terrill running 35 times you know that means you probably wouldn't work them in between races so maybe that's that's the reason for it but it'd be tough to do it now that you know to keep them sound see we work our horse be 20 I mean if I could raise my horse and not work them I could run him 35 times we know we probably between the breezing and the working in between it's probably you know 35 40 times so that's probably in those days they just they random didn't work them and that's where the race two came up then jaci red Pollard was Wolf's polar-opposite werewolf was the cocky ladies man able to choose from the best horses in the country Pollard was the typical journeyman rider struggling to survive he wore a Saint Christopher's medal for good luck and given his injuries he needed red Pollard was at the time galloped a lot of horses he galloped horses for Tom Smith who was the trainer of Seabiscuit and he was at that barn every morning galloped horses and that's how he got the mound I'm sure that's how he got on the horse was through galloping the horses for them in those days jockeys road for stables more than they do not now now we call him freelance writers most all riders freelance red Pollard they called him the cougar he'd always be telling cougar stories all the younger riders come in the room he'd be telling them the cougar stories that he won with the round with the Cougars up in Canada before he kept down to the United States red Pollard at the beginning of his long career was blinded in one eye from a horse accident and he had to keep that accident a secret he had a horse somersault on him at 40 miles an hour crushing his chest he was actually declared dead by the newspapers he had another horse run him into a corner of a barn at about 25 miles an hour and just about sheared his leg off he was told he would never walk again but red just kept coming back I mean red was amazing I was under contract to see us hard and red Pollard was at that time ride - Seabiscuit and he came to the barn a lot and he adopted me he took good care of me he was really really a father to me for four or five years look at her she's waiting for that baby it's amazing she's a good mayor and she I was playing checkers with John Langdon and I had him beat about four games in a row away playing survive this game and so I he got up I said give me money and he didn't give to me nice and I called him a name and he pushed me down and got his thumbs in my eyes I'm a little kid and he's a man so when red Pollard got back in their jocks tongues had grabbed that kid they told me run over and grab that that joy he grabbed John long didn't around the neck and twisted his nose I thought he's gonna twist to clear off and that guy was screaming you know and he turned him loose - don't you ever touch that kid again red Pollard he was entirely different have entirely different disposition than George and his for as far as I ever knew they were pretty good friends I think Georgie wolf compared to Paul it would be a Cadillac and wolf would be a wolf would be a Cadillac and Pollard would be a possibly a Model T Ford that's a you know ten to one I'd say the difference every year a good horse came out Georgie wolf would be on that horse and I don't think read parlor down outside of Seabiscuit I don't think he ever wrote a real real good horse by August of 1938 it was clear Charles Howard had the best horse in the West sea biscuits closest Western rival was liquor Odie owned by Howard Sun Lynn and actor Bing Crosby they were eager to take Howard and Seabiscuit down a notch or two and proposed the horses meet at Del Mar a brand new racecourse near San Diego August 12 1938 was the day delmar truly came of age America's sporting press headed west to watch Charles s Howard's popular Seabiscuit take on the Argentine horse literally owned by Crosby and Howard's son Lin not even comedian Joey Brown could thaw the frozen smile of the elder Howard that day who was looking at a winner-take-all purse of $25,000 and another 15 grand bet on the side Seabiscuit the reigning handicapped champ broke from the inside and went right for the lead under Iceman George Woolf but soon spec Richardson had literally in Seabiscuit shadow they raced flat out down the Delbar backstretch we're literally poked his head in front for a few tantalizing stride but Seabiscuit wouldn't quit even though he was carrying 15 pounds more than his younger rival they dueled through the stretch and while a crowd watched the horses the stewards were witnessing an outright brawl between the two riders the inquiry took forever but the resultant stood Seabiscuit had one after Seabiscuit defeated liquor OD he hopped back into his Pullman car and headed east he had defeated the best horses racing could offer save one it was time to meet Triple Crown winner worid [Music] with Seabiscuit wouldn't when he win the Brooklyn and War Admiral had just shipped in and when the third leg of the Triple Crown the Belmont Stakes and at that time they started to figure which was the best would wind up being the best horse Seabiscuit or warrior don't see a war Admiral was the Son of Man O'War Seabiscuit was a grandson of Man O'War so they started talking at that time of what if those two ever horses ever got together which one would be the best I love the picture right behind us of the great match race of 1938 the country was in a depression and this race brought the country together War Admiral could not have been more different from Seabiscuit I mean Seabiscuit came from California which was considered minor leagues lower class and Seabiscuit was like the average Joe or the the working man's horse War Admiral on the other hand was blue blood and aristocratic upper class from the East Coast which was the center of the racing world and war admiral was the son of man of war and was only Eastern multi-millionaire samuel riddle so it was East versus West high class versus lower class what a great matchup this was I mean they were both such remarkable animals it was going to be the race of the century in the fall of 1937 tracks all over the country began competing for a chance to host a match between Seabiscuit and War Admiral every attempt to schedule a match failed finally alfred vanderbilt of Pimlico racecourse in Baltimore broke the stalemate the race of the century would be run November 1st of 1938 the day of the match race we had been arguing of course I was a Seabiscuit fan and most of the fellows bit had been around the racetrack much longer than I had and they thought that war Admiral had more cliffs in Seabiscuit November 1st dawned clear and the track was labeled fast the race was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. but by 10:00 a.m. thousands pressed against the gates of Pimlico and Vanderbilt ordered that the track open early for the match race George Woolf stepped in to replace an injured Pollard War Admiral was written by his regular writer Charles Curtsinger the match race was Seabiscuit was one of the races of the century I think I guess Tom Smith trained Seabiscuit to go right to the front which they weren't expecting at all they just thought War Admiral would take the track away from him but it didn't turn out that way because when the man said go Seabiscuit was right in front they called up to lap and tap in those days and it was a walk-up start trimming over than it is are you ready okay odd let's go [Applause] Seabiscuit bears down at the quarter mile Pole and pulled the head violate the $15,000 and people Tom Smith he rigged up a an alarm clock on a board and when Seabiscuit hear that alarm clock he'd take off and that's how they give a lap tap start what they call a laptop start and he took the track away from forever when they went to for the match race the two of them they thought War Admiral was gonna be in front little Seabiscuit opened up up on him going into the first turn it was wolf settle down I'm even just kept him a baby bottle lengths in front and then we're in low beta moving got up hit and hit with him heading for home Curtsinger thought he was one before everyone he thought that he was going to sneak up on him down the backside and he moved up to him the mile Pole and headed effect it's the Admirals last bit and he failed lead with every stride with 40,000 frenzied spectators were overcome with excitement they broke through barriers and the inside rail to reach proceed as good as he cruised by so long Charlie shouted wolf coining a phrase that became common on the track he finished with a four length lead and a track record of 156 and 3/5 for the mile and 3/16 when he win that race I will step and touch Seabiscuit could have retired after defeating War Admiral but Charles Howard had one more goal victory on his home turf in Racing's richest stakes the $100,000 Santa Anita Handicap victory would ensure Seabiscuit's place as the world's richest horse [Music] the sandy the handicapped in that era was was the first hundred grandeur they called it first hundred thousand dollars stakes race carried a purse of $100,000 six figures which at that time was was astronomical in 1937 Seabiscuit made his first run at the Santa Anita Handicap although the race ended in a photo finish Howard was confident in victory he ordered a round of champagne for the press and then discovered Rosemont had won a year later Seabiscuit was back for another try carrying 30 pounds more than stagehand his closest rival Seabiscuit set a blistering pace once again it was a photo finish and stagehand was declared the winner in February of 1939 while prepping for another attempt at the world's richest race Seabiscuit injured his left front ankle and came up lame there would be no handicap victory he might never race again [Music] we're at Ridgewood ranch home of Seabiscuit the history of the ranch goes back to 1850 it's been a working ranch since then this is the home of Seabiscuit and Charles Howard bought the property in 1921 [Music] Seabiscuit came here in 1939 recuperating from an injury he stayed here for not quite a year before he went back on the track [Music] when they said Seabiscuit up to will it's up there they brought him to seven mares anyway they had seven Colts by him they called him the seven little biscuits there was quite a bit of publicity in those days the bottom and showed him all lined up together yeah at the same time red Pollard was recuperating from a bad injury a broken leg moved him up from Los Angeles to Howard Hospital [Music] and so they both recuperated at the same time they thought that Seabiscuit would never race again and they thought to red Pollard would never ride again and so they both proved out to be wrong after nine months at the ranch Howard and Smith shocked the racing world by announcing that Seabiscuit would return to racing Seabiscuit was 7 far too old to defeat younger horses in the big cap Santa Anita Handicap of 1940 John says Howard had the entry of kayak and Seabiscuit Joe and Enders announced over the loudspeaker afford the race that they had declared the win with Seabiscuit two weeks prior to that Seabiscuit beat kayak in the track record time in the san antonio handicap I was at the sanity to handicap win Seabiscuit beat kayak to second CS Howard declared to win with Seabiscuit in other words kayak to second would not be in the race as far as the public was concerned he announced that over the public address system Johnny Adams had just won on kayak the second the sanity to handicap the year before and they were afraid I think that kayak might beat Seabiscuit if they didn't make some kind of a commitment with the other horse here's a horse has been laid up a year you don't know what kind of a horse he's gonna be and they still put 130 pounds on him that's one of the great things about Seabiscuit really yeah you know he carried that hundred and thirty pounds like you and I carry an envelope or something [Music] Seabiscuit was 130 pounds and written by Donnie Pollard it's coupled with kayaks detective written finally on but he has a waiting room he'll fly off safer he'll fly he's going in a position [Music] penta by going second Seabiscuit could go to the front door he could you could take him back he could do anything with him a lot of horses had come to Seabiscuit in different races getting to him and getting by him with two different things believe me and that's the truth [Music] kayaking that way Tannenbaum now have a wedding promenade on the outside by a handsome second by a head be bested by one Lang set and my County into the stretch Steve incident run by a handsome fire citing an entire can see biscuit-head in hand him tagging in hand on the rail he mention an kayak even after coming on hidden it [Music] [Music] [Music] now people say that kayak could have beat Seabiscuit but I watched the race myself and I don't think he was going to beat him I think red Pollard had a little bit left when they got to the sixteen people that's my opinion but other people think that kayak could have beat him and I was there and I don't think so there's a blessing when he come back the last time and win that race because that's all men man hard was thinking about all his life about that ours he was the greatest man I ever seen it on the horse good horse and took care of you not only when they were running when they went to the farm he had a castle up there with that horse he was amazing situation [Music] well in 1940 when Seabiscuit won his last race and I needed Seabiscuit went back to Wallace California at Ridgewood ranch Ridgewood Ranch is about eight miles from from the town of Wallace but bullets is about 130 miles north of San Francisco the people in this area were absolutely crazy about Seabiscuit and there's probably one of the most famous things that ever happened to the town of Wallace we call the Howard house was built in 1905 by William Van Arsdale it was until 1921 that Charles Howard moved into the house Charles Howard had a lot of famous guests being Crosby used to come up every summer also Clark Gable would used to come up and spend some time here at the ranch there was a southmere barn and a North bear barn each mirror barn had twenty two stalls and a North Mira barn was used primarily for weaning the coals and where the poles where they pulled out and gave birth was in the south near barn on all these barns there was weather vanes and weather vanes were were made by Tex wheeler Tex wheeler was also the artist who sculpted the sculpture that stands at Santa Mena today within sight of Tex wheelers famous statue of Seabiscuit there is another monument to racing George Woolf statue gazes across to Seabiscuit the horse he called the greatest I ever rode the great horse far lap the Australian horse that won every race and in Australia they brought him to Caliente and he was mysteriously poisoned and the the writer of that horse gave George Woolf a saddle that was made out of kangaroo and that's what became George Lopes lucky saddle that was used his whole career except that one day that he forgot it in his car and didn't have time and that was when he was killed at Santa Anita [Music] one January day in 1946 George Woolf rode his final race there was nothing special about the day the race or the horse he rode pleased me as a favor to a friend I asked him how things were going he says well I got a problem I said well what's your problem he said well I have diabetes and he says I have to take insulin for it and I have to make sure I take the right amount and Georgia well it's not gonna fall off a horse I think that he may not have gotten the right amount of insulin in his system and when he rode pleased me I think he just blacked out and possibly and fellow [Music] in his scrapbooks there's thousands of telegrams of that day and don't one says there anyhow I remember when I read it I couldn't believe it George Woolf you know he was an icon really [Music] I was a terrible thing and I'm telling you one thing I've been seen a lot of good writers I think she'll make it was great her Kara was great they weren't greater than George the wolf he lived life to the fullest and he died doing what he loved seabiscuit spent the last years of his life at Ridgewood wrench he sired a few run-ins helped herd cattle and roamed the wrench with Charles Howard on board well this nut barn was built in 1940 it was built for Seabiscuit he was staying down here at Amir barn for some time and they felt they needed to take and have a barn just for Seabiscuit [Music] as a stallion Seabiscuit wasn't death successful he did get a few horses and win steak races but he wasn't any Northern Dancer or anything like that [Music] Seabiscuit stayed there approximately six years and in 1947 he died he died right outside of the stud barn normally horses them to be 20-30 years old Seabiscuit died when he was 14 years old so was he was relatively a young horse there was a shop Charles Howard Charles Howard did it for another three years and then he passed away where she biscuit was is buried there's really unknown but we know that it's open it's a beautiful spot somewhere here on the ranch with the exact location of secret Howard family lore says that an oak tree was planted over Seabiscuit's grave standing tall and proudly the oak remains as a living testament to a horse whose meteoric rise inspired a nation who could forget Seabiscuit a homely horse who became a hero for all times [Music] you

Channel: FREE MOVIES

Views: 678,733

Keywords: Seabiscuit, redpollard, Racehorse, horseracing, horse, horses, matchrace, jockey, greatdepression, video, movie, biographical, historical, freemovie, fullmovie, 1091, ondemand, match race, featurefilm, watchathome

Id: kKrhB9kvUuQ

Length: 50min 40sec (3040 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2017