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Loading... Seabiscuit: An American Legendby Laura HillenbrandLibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. An intense tale of a horse that became a legend. The eye opening view on the horse racing world was also interesting. It was slightly difficult to tell all of the different races apart from each other. I was a little lost at some points. Seabiscuit is a great book and moves at a decent pace. (  )amcgoogan | Jul 6, 2009 |   This book not only tells the story of a racehorse, it goes in-depth into the time period of the early 20th century. It may be focused around horse racing but it goes father than that into the state of the country and the mentality of the time. It also tells the individual stories of the Seabiscuit's owner, trainer, and jockey. It's purely amazing, whether you are interested in horse racing or not. ( )NanceJ | Feb 14, 2009 | Great story of three men and a wonderful "plain" horse with a lot of heart who inspired working people during the Depression. ( )kcslade | Feb 5, 2009 | Charles Howard was good at spotting opportunities and made a fortune as the General Motors automobile distributor for the Western United States in the 1920's. This remarkable person proved to be equally good at finding a trainer for his new racing stable. Tom Smith was 56 when Howard met him and had spent his life around horses, cattle ranching, taming mustangs for the British cavalry, circus shows, small time racing but by 1934 he lived in the same stall as his only horse and was out of money. Charles Howard decided that the uncommunicative Smith was the right person for his project, and Smith travelled round the tracks for him looking at hundreds of cheap horses until he found the well bred loser "Seabiscuit". He saw something there, and together with jockey Red Pollard they went on to win everything in American racing. Laura Hillenbrand obviously loves horses and has written a good story about a fabulous one "Seabiscuit". Miro | Jan 31, 2009 | Engaging when I was reading it and full of interesting characters, which I'd almost totally forgotten the next week. Good beach read. (  )Andromeda_Yelton | Dec 21, 2008 | 0.079 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com's Best of 2001 (ISBN 0449005615, Paperback)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. Though sometimes her prose takes on a distinctly purple hue ("His history had the ethereal quality of hoofprints in windblown snow"; "The California sunlight had the pewter cast of a declining season"), Hillenbrand has crafted a delightful book. Wire to wire, Seabiscuit is a winner. Highly recommended. --Sunny Delaney (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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