Average Rating: 
Rating: - Hoof-Tromping, Heart-Thumping Thrills as an Underdog Wins!
If you only read one book about sports this year, make it Seabiscuit. This book deserves many more than five stars for its superb portrayal of the underdog horse whose career captured the nation's heart during the depths of the Depression. In fact, the less you know about thoroughbred racing in the 1930s the more you will probably like this book. Similar to its subject, the underdog Seabiscuit, the book, Seabiscuit, constantly surprises in many multi-dimensional ways. The best books about sports transcend sports and teach us about life. Seabiscuit is a fine example of that success. Ms. Hillenbrand is a brilliant story teller, a fine writer, and has an eye for detail that brings you into the scenes she describes. You will feel yourself on Seabiscuit's back, looking for an opening to the rail, as you read the accounts of his most famous races. If you do not know about Seabiscuit, this horse was an unlikely candidate for racing greatness. He was built all wrong, had a weird personality, and required unusual handling that few would provide. His career was heading nowhere when he was bought by the wealthy Charles Howard, a legendary automobile dealer in the western United Sates, on the advice of his obscure trainer, Tom Smith. Finding ways to encourage Seabiscuit provides all of the intellectual excitement of a puzzle. Part of solving the puzzle required finding a very special jockey, one whose intelligence allowed him to be flexible. No one could have seemed less likely to play the role of top jockey based on his career track record than Red Pollard, who became the most effective jockey on Seabiscuit. The triumverate combined to take advantage of Seabiscuit's "blistering speed, tactical versatility, and indomitable will." All of that training and work led up to a monumental match race against Triple Crown winner War Admiral in 1938. During that year, more inches of newspaper space in the United States were devoted to Seabiscuit than to FDR or Hitler. The book has so many dimensions that they cannot all be addressed in this brief space. There is a lot of history. The biographies of the three main human characters tell you a lot about the development of the automobile, horse training, and the careers of jockeys. The colorful side stories are priceless, especially the ones in Tijuana around the old track there (where western racing migrated after betting was made illegal in California). The tales about the manure pile there are hilarious. Each of the three main characters could have been the subject of his own very interesting biography, and much interesting detail is included here. There is a lot of humor. You will especially like the cat-and-mouse games that Tom Smith played with the media so that they could not find out how fast Seabiscuit was running in his workouts. The stories also involve a lot of diplomacy. The background leading up to the match race with War Admiral will remind you of the peace negotiations to end the Vietnam War. Finally, there is much tragedy. Horseracing is dangerous (especially for the jockeys), and many paid the price is a variety of ways. I cannot remember a sports book that captures so many dimensions of fine book writing and story telling. I was reminded of Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway as I read this book, but I think that Seabiscuit is the better book. After you finish enjoying the book, look around you. Where is there hidden potential waiting to be tapped? Do you have a Seabiscuit-like opportunity you can develop? Probably. Be flexible in looking for great potential!
Rating: - Not Just for Horse Lovers
This book came recommended as 'not just for horse lovers' and it was true. Beginning with some history of the resisted transition of horse to automobile in the United States, we are introduced to some colorful and amazingly tenacious characters, especially Charles Howard and Tom Smith, the owner and handler respectively of Seabiscuit. I found the first 100 pages to be a bit slow, but then the story took off. In race after race, the vivid descriptions put you there on the animal's back seeing things from the jockey's perspective. It was quite an education to read about the lives of jockeys. I had no idea they were so obsessed with weight that they would resort to ANY means to lose pounds, almost to the point of killing themselves. It was hard to believe some of the tactics they used to win races, such as pulling on the tail of the competitors horse, before regulations were put in place. Seabiscuit was a total prima donna right from the start: sleeping laying down on his side for hours on end, insisting on having his pals by his side in his stall, overeating every chance he got. This book was thoroughly enjoyable and I recommend it to everyone looking for one of those hard-to-put-down reads.
Rating: - An Amazing Story
When most readers are told that the book that received the award as virtually everybody's book of the year in 2001 is the story of a race horse it's hard to believe. And frankly I kept reading this book amazed at myself for being so intrigued by it. Laura Hillenbrand has created a view of America that most American's of the 21th Century don't have a clue about. She shows a side of the Depression and the world of horse trainers and jockeys that is valuable, informative and well worth reading for everyone interested in America's past.For a society that assume entitledments in exchange for employement such as health care and retirement benefits and the right to join a union, the plight of the jockeys is "worth the price of admission." I'm sure the expression "by the seat of your pants" is older than the sport of racing, but that's how jockeys lived - virtually by the seat of their pants. For animal lovers the treatment and love of the horse is heartwarming. This is a great book and well worth reading. I've never been a horse racing fan but after reading SEABISCUIT I'm going to have a lot more respect of race horses and the entire sport. I only wish there were more like it.
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