Emmie's Excerpts

Seabiscuit

The movie Seabiscuit starts in 1910 well before the great depression. There is a nice family with a wonderful amount of children the oldest being a great jockey and loved to ride horses. When the great depression began the family lost their home and had to stay in a Shanty where you could easily catch a disease. The family couldn’t provide for their children any more and thus, sent their oldest son to stay with a family who still had a home and could provide for him. The family that took him in called him “Red” for his red hair and spirit. Later in life, Red was trying new things to provide for himself. He tried boxing but after a few fights developed blurry vision. In Seabiscuit’s first race, he was beat, but then he won his next six races and set record times. Red wanted Seabiscuit to race the greatest horse of the century, War Admiral. Red and his coaches set up a race that would draw the best horses near for the grand prize of $100,000, which is about 1 million dollars today, yet War Admiral’s owner said no thanks which brought people to think War Admiral’s owner was scared to race Seabiscuit. The big race went on anyway and Seabiscuit was beat by a nose. Red, his coaches and Seabiscuit then entered every race the Admiral was supposed to be in, but every time War Admiral scratched (quit the race before it started). Finally, War Admiral’s owner agreed to race Seabiscuit and Red. A week before the race, someone asked Red to breeze his horse (to ride his horse around the track). Red agreed happily, but what Red didn’t know was this horse was very sensitive to loud noises and sounds. A tractor was nearby and when it backfired, the roaring engine scared the horse and fell to the ground. Red couldn’t unlatch his foot from the strap so he was dragged behind the horse and was badly injured and could not ride anymore. His coaches said they should scratch, but Red said no and to call Wolf to ride Seabiscuit. Wolf was Red’s old jockey friend; his full name was George Wolf. Red told George what to do and how he was trained and on the day of the race Red tuned in on the radio and Seabiscuit won by a lot! Wolf continued to ride Seabiscuit until the horse ruptured a tendon in his leg. Once Seabiscuit recovered, Wolf worked Seabiscuit out to test his readiness. When Red saw this, he felt left out that Wolf got to ride Seabiscuit when he wanted to pursue his passion of horse racing so badly. Red went to the doctor to discuss if he would ever be able to ride again. Red’s coach had a fatherly connection with him and didn’t want to risk him dying or getting badly hurt because Red was still recovering and one fall could kill him. His mentor and Wolf had a talk about if Red should ride and Wolf said and I quote “I would rather break a man’s leg than his heart.” They decided to let Red race in the upcoming race; the $100,000 race and the same one he had lost by a nose previously. Red and Seabiscuit couldn’t keep up with the big pack of horses. Wolf, on a different horse, slowed down so Seabiscuit had some competition and Seabiscuit went zooming ahead after looking into his competition’s eyes and placed first. I learned that Seabiscuit was an inspiring horse.