About Horses: Famous American Race Horses
|
|
War Admiral 1934 - 1959
|
|
His
Story
from
www.pbs.org/
For all the attention writers and filmmakers heap on Seabiscuit today, the horse was not considered the fastest Thoroughbred for most of his racing career. That distinction went to War Admiral, the son born to the regal mare Brushup and sired by the horse many consider the greatest Thoroughbred of all time, Man o' War.
Like His Daddy
In the spring of 1937 War Admiral
dominated every stage of every race he entered. When he won the Kentucky
Derby that year, Neville Dunn, sports editor for the Lexington Herald,
wrote, "A little brown horse that takes after his mammy in size but runs
like his daddy charged to victory in the 63rd Kentucky Derby... and he
won so easily, so effortlessly, that 65,000 fans nudged one another in
the ribs and said, 'I told you so! I told you that War Admiral could run
like
Man o' War.'"
Triple Crown
Next, War Admiral
took the Preakness. At Belmont, the third leg of the Triple Crown, the
Thoroughbred repeatedly crashed through the gate, as he was wont to do,
delaying the start for nearly nine minutes. At the bell, he bounded so
powerfully onto the course that his hind feet overran his front, and the
toe of his hind shoe gouged into his right forehoof. He left behind an
inch-square chunk of his forehoof on the track. In just ten leaps,
though, he was beyond the entire field. By race's end, he had left a
trail of blood and beaten horses, cracking the course's track record,
which had been held by his father, to become the fourth winner of the
coveted Triple Crown.
Unlikely Rivals
War Admiral was a sleek and elegant horse. He had the glistening muscles
of a warrior. In contrast,
Seabiscuit was low slung and
had an awkward gallop.
Seabiscuit also had a tendency
to overeat and was far more low-key than his rival, sleeping far longer
than other horses could. The horses also had completely different racing
styles. Seabiscuit
was a fair starter, but usually had to weave his way through the pack,
relying on consistent speed, endurance, and a burst of speed at the end
to win. High strung like his father,
War Admiral
would bolt onto the racetrack. He was like a racecar engine, quickly
accelerating to high speeds and then maintaining them. Even the horses'
owners were opposites: Samuel Riddle,
War Admiral's
owner, was haughty, spoke little, and intensely distrusted the press
corps; Seabiscuit's
owner,
Charles Howard,
was garrulous, friendly and courted reporters.
The Match Race
In December 1937 after winning a remarkable eight of eight starts for
the season,
War Admiral
was named horse of the year by a sportswriters' poll in Turf and
Sport Digest. Seabiscuit
came in second. A few people believed the only horse who might challenge
the Admiral was Seabiscuit, and after a few failed attempts to arrange a
match-up, the two owners signed on to a winner-take-all race at
Baltimore's Pimlico Racecourse on November 1, 1938. The unlikely rivals
would run what many racing aficionados consider the greatest race in the
history of the sport.
Conventional Wisdom
Every writer for the Daily Racing Form picked
War Admiral
to win and 95 percent of all other journalists believed that aristocracy
would whip the
Western upstart.
"[I] am one of the narrow minded group which has seen
War Admiral
run too often," San Francisco
Chronicle columnist John Lardner wrote, "to concede
Seabiscuit
a chance for anything better than a seat in Congress this year."
Popular Opinion
The Pimlico match race drew nationwide attention. It played on regional
rivalries and on the preference of
Depression-era
Americans for the underdog. If a horse like
Seabiscuit
could triumph over the worst hardships, many Americans must have felt,
so could they. "The whole country is divided into two camps," noted
journalist David Boone. "If the issue were deferred another week, there
would be a civil war between the
War Admiral Americans
and the
Seabiscuit Americans."
High Drama
The biggest surprise in the match was that
Tom Smith
had re-trained Seabiscuit
to bolt at the sound of the bell. He lunged ahead of War Admiral
immediately. Seabiscuit
took the lead, an unaccustomed place for him.
War Admiral
caught his rival and the two rode side by
side to the top of the stretch. Then Seabiscuit sprinted ahead. Some
said he had more in reserve; others said he had greater heart. He won by
four lengths, clocking in at 1 minute, 56 and 3/5
War Admiral would finish his career with an incredible 21-for-26 record and earnings of $273,240. But for years afterward, it was Seabiscuit's brilliance in their match race that people remembered.