Seabiscuit Sparknotes

The book Seabiscuit: An American Legend, tells the life story of Seabiscuit, one of the most famous race horses in America at his time and existence, along with the background story on Seabiscuit’s trainer who discovered and trained him. I like how the book captures Seabiscuit’s greatest moments while he continued to attract the nation's attention at the height of the Great Depression. The book made Seabiscuit the classic underdog in the story with a big heart come back from what could have been a career ending injury to win the handicap race Santa Anita in 1940. Seabiscuit was born in an age when horses were becoming less relevant for travel needs and farming needs due to the upcoming popularity of automobiles, Seabiscuit and other equine

athletes helped ensure that horse racing remained relevant as a sport.
The book starts off by reviewing Seabiscuit's owner’s background. Seabiscuit’s owner was Ron Howard, a multimillionaire who moved to California in 1903 with a dream and a pocketful of change. The way he launched his career to become a multimillionaire was by opening a bicycle repair store, he then realized that with the new automobile technology he could make faster money by repairing automobiles. He then acquired a Buick franchise that was passed down to him through the business. Shortly after he had received the Buick franchise, Ron Howard became a very wealthy man.
Ron Howard was a tall, sharp dressed man, who everyone saw as very photogenic and clever.

His son Frankie Howard was killed in an accident during a race, Ron never completely recovered from the death. His marriage collapsed not long afterwards the death of his son. Tom Smith, whom was Seabiscuit’s trainer, was an old man with a lot of cowboy routines to deal with horse psychology. His old ways of training helped deplinish Seabiscuit’s several bad habits such as his laziness and stubbornness. Once Seabiscuit broke from his habits, he showed extensive improvement on the track, everyone could notice there had been a big change in Seabiscuit in his next few

races.
Tom Smith, whom was Seabiscuit’s trainer, was an old .

His old ways of training helped get rid of Seabiscuit’s several bad habits such as his laziness and stubbornness. John Pollard, who was Seabiscuit’s underlying rider, was born in Edmonton, Alberta. John was a admirer of classic literature and had numerous talents. John lost the majority of his sight in one eye, conceivably due to an injury during his terse boxing career. Swing On, Seabiscuit’s mother, gave birth to Seabiscuit was born in late May 1933, so he was half a year younger than the majority of racehorses that he was competing against. Seabiscuit started off by racing against horses in low-stakes claiming races, he occasionally showed the speed associated with his desire, but it was the non-stop racing that kept him in priceless shape. After the Santa Anita loss, Seabiscuit went on to win seven stakes races in a row, those including the Butler Handicap and the Massachusetts Handicap. After winning the Santa Anita Handicap the next year, Ron Pollard continued as Howard's stable

agent.
He advanced to pursue a dream as a trainer, but resolved to riding as long as he was physically able. Seabiscuit’s trainer, Tom, had been training Seabiscuit for numerous years now and was very illustrious of the progress that Seabiscuit was presenting. There had been many doubts Seabiscuit, and talk about how he would never make it anywhere. All of that talk was brought to a halt when Seabiscuit started showing splendid amounts of talent during his Handicap races. That was when Seabiscuit really started to get himself noticed. John, Seabiscuit’s jockey, was also brought into the spotlight with Seabiscuit, acquiring himself some fame as well. Seabiscuit apparently died due to a heart attack at the age of fourteen.