SEABISCUIT : In Winning the First Hollywood Gold Cup 50 Years Ago, He Etched Memories as Lasting as His Statue of Bronze

In the summer of 1936, “a lean, tired, sore-kneed horse,” came into the possession of two men.

In the summer of 1938, that same horse won the first running of the Hollywood Gold Cup.

After two major disappointments--defeats by a nose in the Santa Anita Handicap in both 1937 and 1938--it was a major triumph for a bay 5-year-old named Seabiscuit.

Today, half a century later, it once again is Gold Cup day at Hollywood Park, and no doubt there will be those at the track who remember Seabiscuit’s remarkable run of 50 years ago.

But how many of them will recall the difficult road that the son of Hard Tack and Swing On had to follow to reach the winner’s circle on July 16, 1938? How many will remember:

--That it took Seabiscuit 18 races to gain his first victory?

--That he won only 5 of his first 35 races and 14 of his first 58?

--That not once in his first 59 races did he go off as the favorite?

And yet Seabiscuit today is regarded as a racing legend, a horse who rose out of obscurity to become the “people’s choice,” much as Silky Sullivan and John Henry did in later years.

His victory in the inaugural Gold Cup had a lot to do with that.

After being purchased for $8,000 as a 3-year-old in 1936 by Charles S. Howard, a Los Angeles and San Francisco automobile dealer, Seabiscuit was turned over to trainer Silent Tom Smith.

As his nickname indicates, Smith was a man of few words, but he turned the Kentucky-bred into 1938’s horse of the year. Seabiscuit was the first of six Gold Cup winners to be so honored, the most recent being Ferdinand last year.

Heavily raced but not overly successful at ages 2 and 3, Seabiscuit came into his own as a 4-year-old. Under Smith’s care, he finished in the money in 14 of his 15 starts in 1937, scored 11 victories and earned $168,580.

He was, in the words of former Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman, “a runt of a horse with a pair of game knees but the heart of a champion.”

But a loss by a nose to Rosemont in the $100,000 Santa Anita Handicap in 1937 and a similar loss to Stagehand in the 1938 Big ‘Cap had given him something of an ill-starred image. As a headline in The Times put it on the morning of the 1938 Gold Cup:

“Seabiscuit’s Rooters Hope Third Time Will Be Charm for Hard-Luck Horse”

Beneath the headline were photographs of his two Santa Anita Handicap defeats.

The first running of the Gold Cup changed all that. On the morning after the race, there was a different headline and a different photo in The Times:

“Smashing Stretch Run Brings Victory to Seabiscuit in $50,000 Gold Cup Race”

The photograph showed Seabiscuit crossing the wire not a nose behind but 1 1/2 lengths ahead of his nearest rival.

But that is jumping the gun. First, there was what The Times’ Paul Lowry described as the “ludicrous situation” at Hollywood Park the day before the race.

In brief, this is what appears to have happened: Smith entered Seabiscuit but listed him as a “doubtful starter” on the entry blank. The stewards refused to accept that designation.

Smith at first refused the stewards’ request to have a veterinarian examine Seabiscuit.

Then, Smith capitulated to the stewards, Seabiscuit was examined and passed as raceworthy, and was listed as a definite starter in a field of 10.

As Lowry wrote: “Regardless of all the hubbub over Seabiscuit’s condition, the horse is dead fit. His connections have been too careful of him to have shipped him here from Chicago in any other condition.”

But Times handicapper Oscar Otis hedged somewhat in making Seabiscuit his choice to win. “If himself, will gallop home,” Otis wrote.

When the race got underway the next afternoon before a crowd of 35,000, there were some who wondered if Seabiscuit was himself.

Sent off as the odds-on favorite, he was next to last going around the turn into the backstretch and at one point trailed Specify, who was two years younger, by as many as 14 lengths. Lowry takes up the tale:

“Even jockey Georgie Woolf must have sensed that it was dangerous business to give any horse that much of a lead, and he roused Seabiscuit sharply with the whip going down the backstretch.

“Gradually Seabiscuit moved up until he came to the head of the stretch in second place, only four lengths back. Cutting to the inside as Specify bore out, Woolf gave his mount the final charge. Yard by yard they ate down the margin, and 70 yards from home they were out in front. They were going away at the wire.”

Seabiscuit’s winning time for the 1 miles was a track-record 2:03 4/5, three-fifths of second faster than Specify had run a week earlier in winning the inaugural Hollywood Derby. Making his feat all the more remarkable was his carrying 133 pounds, his highest impost ever but the same weight he had carried in winning the Bay Meadows Handicap exactly two months earlier.

The luckless Specify, who was to finish third in the 1939 Gold Cup and second again in 1940, set a fast pace. The colt covered the first quarter in 23 4/5 seconds, the half in 47 1/5, 6 furlongs in 1:11 2/5, and the mile in 1:37 3/5.

Seabiscuit was 6 lengths behind at the mile marker but covered the last quarter in 25 seconds, which Lowry called “a real tribute to the courage of the horse, burdened with 133 pounds, and giving Specify 12 pounds on the scale.”

Woolf, for whom the victory was the first of three straight in the Gold Cup, also was impressed. “He’s the greatest horse I ever rode,” the jockey said. “There’s not a horse alive that can pack equal weight with the ‘Biscuit.”

But even Woolf, wearing the red and white silks of the Howard Stable, had to admit that he’d had second thoughts when Seabiscuit fell so far behind on the backstretch.

“I knew I had all horse under me and that he could win it if he wanted to,” Woolf said. “But Specify sure looked a long way away.”

To the delight of the crowd, which had wagered $178,735 of the day’s record handle of $987,202 on the race, Seabiscuit made short work of the long gap and afterward was able to accept the blanket of flowers from actress Anita Louise in the winner’s circle. Specify was second and Whichcee third.

Seabiscuit never finished out of the money in 1938. He ran 11 times, won 6 races, was second 4 times and third once, and added $130,395 to his earnings. Injury kept him out of all but one race in 1939, but in 1940, at 7, he returned to score his most memorable victory.

With a Santa Anita crowd of 74,000 cheering him on, Seabiscuit finally won the race that had eluded him twice before, beating stablemate and defending champion Kayak II in the 1-mile Santa Anita Handicap in a track-record time of 2:01 1/5 under jockey Red Pollard.

Seabiscuit’s $86,650 share of the purse lifted him past Sun Beau as racing’s all-time money winner with $437,730 from 89 starts, including 33 wins. Not long thereafter, Howard retired him to stud at his Ridgewood Ranch near Ukiah in Northern California.

The following year, a life-size bronze statue of Seabiscuit was unveiled in Santa Anita’s paddock gardens. It was a unique tribute to a horse still living.

Six years later, he was gone.

At midnight on May 17, 1947, Seabiscuit sank to his knees in his stall at Ridgewood Ranch, the victim of a heart attack. He was 14.

As Zimmerman wrote later: “The story of his gallant rise to greatness against great odds will live on as one of the ageless and amazing chapters in sports.”

And it has.

Today, a half-century after he won the first Hollywood Gold Cup, Seabiscuit’s place among the great horses is as secure as ever.