Review: 'Seabiscuit: An American Legend'

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2003-04-26

Review: 'Seabiscuit: An American Legend'
What Photographers Should Be Reading

By Jim McNay, Brooks Institute of Photography

This is THE book to read as we head into the horse racing Triple Crown season.

A biography of a horse. Yeah, sure.

But wait a minute. What if it's a great biography about an exemplary horse? What if it was a horse that in 1938 received more press attention than Franklin Roosevelt (second), Hitler (third) or Mussolini (fourth)?

This is a story loaded with great characters, of losers and people on the fringe and rivalries and friendships and it-never-could-have-been imagined stories. It's about a most unlikely group of people and a horse with funny looking legs that came together and made history.

Interestingly this is not about a horseracing Triple Crown winner. By the time Seabiscuit was moving into the heart of his career, he was too old for the annual trio of races for three-year olds. But Seabiscuit went on to make national headlines, beating Triple Crown winners along the way.

Reading about trainer Tom Smith alone will show photographers something about what it takes to achieve excellence. The man would watch, could look at a horse's behavior and know what it meant. Smith got inside horse's heads and understood their needs, their bodies, their minds through observation. Based on what he saw he modified his training and produced amazing results. With his abilities he would have made one hell of a photographer.

And as for Seabiscuit himself, author Laura Hillenbrand does a wonderful job showing how much competitive heart one animal can have. The horse

was so good that with the lead, he would allow rivals to catch-up, only to accelerate down the stretch and win going away. One only needs to read a few of this animal's exploits to understand why the country was gaga over one racehorse.

Readers who pick up the book might be encouraged to get the paperback edition with the reader's guide at the back. There is an interview with the author that contains a revealing discussion of her own challenges in getting the book written.

When she did this project, author Hillenbrand was in the midst of a multi-year battle with chronic fatigue syndrome. She could barely leave her house during much of this period. Piling key stacks of research material around her desk chair was one of the many shortcuts she took to get the book written. The eventual presence of the book on the New York Times bestseller list had to be a rewarding achievement, especially for a first book by the author.

So head for the starting gate. This is one ride not to be missed.

Related Links:

Book: Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Jim McNay's Member Page