Book 1 - Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Originally posted 11-21-06!

Title: Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Pages: 399
Grade: A

Summary: (Stolen from Amazon and edited down to what I cared about)
He didn't look like much. With his smallish stature, knobby knees, and slightly crooked forelegs, he looked more like a cow pony than a thoroughbred. But looks aren't everything; his quality, an admirer once wrote, "was mostly in his heart." Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of the horse who became a cultural icon in Seabiscuit: An American Legend.

Seabiscuit rose to prominence with the help of an unlikely triumvirate: owner Charles Howard, an automobile baron who once declared that "the day of the horse is past"; trainer Tom Smith, a man who "had cultivated an almost mystical communication with horses"; and jockey Red Pollard, who was down on his luck when he charmed a then-surly horse with his calm demeanor and a sugar cube. Hillenbrand details the ups and downs of "team Seabiscuit," from early training sessions to record-breaking victories, and from serious injury to "Horse of the Year"--as well as the Biscuit's fabled rivalry with War Admiral. She also describes the world of horseracing in the 1930s, from the snobbery of Eastern journalists regarding Western horses and public fascination with the great thoroughbreds to the jockeys' torturous weight-loss regimens, including saunas in rubber suits, strong purgatives, even tapeworms.

Along the way, Hillenbrand paints wonderful images: tears in Tom Smith's eyes as his hero, legendary trainer James Fitzsimmons, asked to hold Seabiscuit's bridle while the horse was saddled; critically injured Red Pollard, whose chest was crushed in a racing accident a few weeks before, listening to the San Antonio Handicap from his hospital bed, cheering "Get going, Biscuit! Get 'em, you old devil!"; Seabiscuit happily posing for photographers for several minutes on end; other horses refusing to work out with Seabiscuit because he teased and taunted them with his blistering speed.

My thoughts: This is literally one of the easiest Non-fictions I have ever had the opportunity to read. I would say the easiest but I've read quite a few lately that have also read quite well. At times I would catch myself forgetting to breathe during the description of a race...races to which I already knew the outcomes. I also love the writer's style, while so much of it is based in fact she still managed to give it a flare all her own that I loved and highly appreciated. Overall, my stand, if you like horses, the story of the underdog, pre-WWII America, or the tale of a spirit that lived on long after it's death...this is utterly a book you need to possess and read.