Symboli Rudolf

Nov 1, 1938: Seabiscuit beat War Admiral in a two-horse match race that stopped the country. Seabiscuit didn't look like a champion. He was small, knobby-kneed, and lazy, and for his first couple of years he lost more than he won. Then he was bought by a car dealer named Charles Howard, trained by a quiet old mustang breaker named Tom Smith, and ridden by Red Pollard, a jockey who was secretly blind in one eye. He started winning, and Depression-era Americans who felt beat up by life fell in love with him. War Admiral was everything Seabiscuit wasn't. He was a big, beautiful son of the great Man o' War, and he had won the Triple Crown in 1937. Many people expected him to crush Seabiscuit. Pollard had been badly injured in a fall, so George Woolf rode. War Admiral was known for blazing speed out of the starting gate, so Tom Smith spent weeks secretly training Seabiscuit to break fast at the sound of a bell. About 40,000 people packed Pimlico in Baltimore, and around 40 million listened on the radio. Franklin Roosevelt reportedly kept advisers waiting so he could listen. Seabiscuit shot out to the lead. On the backstretch, Woolf let War Admiral catch up until the two horses were running eye to eye. Then Seabiscuit pulled away and won by about four lengths. He was named Horse of the Year.