True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.
It's the Depression, and everyone needs to hold onto a dream to get them through the bad times. Car maker Charles Howard is no different, he who is trying to rebuild his life after the tragic death of his only child and the resulting end of his first marriage. With second wife Marcela at his side, Charles wants to get into horse racing and ends up with a team of underdogs who are also chasing their own dream. The first is trainer Tom Smith, who has a natural instinct to spot the capabilities of horses. The second is the horse Tom chooses for Charles, Seabiscuit, an unconventional choice as despite his pedigreed lineage, Seabiscuit is small at fifteen and a half hands tall with a slight limp. But Tom can see something in Seabiscuit's nature to make him a winner, if only Seabiscuit can be retrained from his inbred losing ways. And third is the jockey they decide to hire, Johnny "Red" Pollard, so nicknamed because of his hair color. Like Tom, Red has always shown a natural way with horses, but a difficult upbringing due solely to the Depression has made Red an angry young man, which has gotten him into trouble both on and off the track. And he is large for a jockey, and thus he always feels the need to battle the weight issue. Another common trait between Tom, Seabiscuit and Red is that they have been called crazy by those in traditional horse racing circles. Against the odds, Seabiscuit, with his human team behind him, does show his winning abilities and captures the imagination of all those others wanting to believe in a dream. But Seabiscuit's victories are at smaller races. As such, Charles aims high and wants Seabiscuit to race Triple Crown winner War Admiral, who by all accounts is a winner and should be a winner. If given the chance to race against War Admiral (whose owner doesn't want to race as he feels he has nothing to prove), will Seabiscuit and his team continue to keep the dreams of the common Americans alive? Through the good and the bad, especially as Red and Seabiscuit face mirroring problems, they all have to decide what is in their collective best interest.—Huggo
In an era when Americans were in great need of heroic figures to help them forget their troubles, SEABISCUIT comes to the rescue. The picture relates a moving story of friendship and devotion in rehabilitating the main characters'fractured lives, as it interweaves the interactions between horse, jockey, trainer and owner and their adoring fans. The film accurately portrays the real people and events of those troubled times and how Seabiscuit "fixed us, every one of us."—Dale Roloff
Three men, Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), Charles S. Howard (Jeff Bridges), and Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) come together as the principal jockey, owner, and trainer of the championship horse Seabiscuit, rising from troubled times to achieve fame and success through their association with the horse.
In 1910, Henry Ford brought the assembly line to America by building the Model T Ford car. Ford was churning out a vehicle every 90 seconds, and soon other businesses adopted the same practices to start manufacturing at a massive scale.
Red is the child of a wealthy family, living in Alberta, Canada, that is financially ruined by the Great Depression in 1929. Red was fond of riding horses from an early age.In the ensuing chaos on the stock market, $10 Billion of market value was lost in a single day. Within 2 weeks 25% of the workforce was unemployed. Families were forced to relocate using their Model T Ford cars.
In desperate need of money, the family (led by Mr Pollard (Michael O'Neill)) leaves Red with a horse trainer. Mr Pollard tells Red that he has a gift and that he should not waste it. Red eventually becomes a jockey in 6 years, but he is still considered too tall. He gets a job that pays $10 week, but takes $9 for meals, $6 for a place to sleep and $3 for tea. Horse racing is a brutal sport and Red is not able to win races as he is not vicious enough to ward off attacks from the other riders during the race. To pay for the extra expenses, Red makes extra money through illegal boxing matches which leave him almost blind in one eye.George Woolfe is the best jockey in the business and Red's best friend.
Howard is a handyman in a bicycle shop in New York City. Howard quits his job to set up his own bicycle repair shop but gets no customers. One day, Howard gets asked by a passing motorist to repair his automobile, a technology which has recently been introduced. As a result, Howard becomes knowledgeable enough with automobiles to increase their performance and sell them as a dealer, eventually becoming the largest car dealer in California and one of the Bay Area's richest men.Howard sees the automobile as the death sentence for horses and even sponsors the early car races in America. This is when the Great Depression hits and Howard has to start laying off people just like everybody else.Howard's son is killed in an automobile accident while driving the family car, which sends Howard into a bout of deep depression, which eventually results in his wife (Valerie Mahaffey) leaving him.
On a trip to Mexico to obtain a divorce and to drown his sorrows (Liquor was illegal in America in 1933), he meets Marcela (Elizabeth Banks). Marcela helps Howard overcome his depression, mainly through horse-riding. After marrying Marcela, Howard acquires a stable of horses and later has a chance encounter with the skilled and kindly horse trainer and drifter Smith (Chris Cooper). Smith was in the bushes tending to an injured horse when Howard first saw him.Howard hires Smith to manage his stables after Smith, who specializes in rehabilitating injured and abused horses, explains to Howard "You don't throw a life away, just because they are banged up a little". Smith convinces Howard to acquire the colt "Seabiscuit", who comes from noted lineage.Smith says that they want a horse that is not afraid to compete and will not run away from a fight. Howard sets up base in California.
Seabiscuit had been deemed "incorrigible" by past handlers (the horse was lazy, was short in size, ate twice as much and slept for long parts of the day) and was later broken and trained to lose against better horses to boost their confidence.Soon, Seabiscuit grew bitter and angry. He was 3 years old and was sold at a rock bottom price of $2000.
Smith is unable to find a jockey willing to deal with Seabiscuit's temperament, but after witnessing Red Pollard brawling with other stable boys, he sees in him a similar temperament to the feisty horse and decides to appoint him as Seabiscuit's jockey. Red and Smith realize quickly that Seabiscuit judges everyone by looking at them, and the only way to bond with him is to look him straight in the eyes.Howard takes good care of Red and Seabiscuit. Smith allows space for Seabiscuit to lose his old habits of losing and to just be a horse again. To calm Seabiscuit down, Smith pairs him up with a filly. Smith and Red find that Seabiscuit responds to competition on the racetrack and can do really fast.
Seabiscuit and Pollard become close, and they begin to race. After overcoming early difficulties, such as a dismissive media ("Tick Tock" McLaughlin (William H. Macy) is a radio commentator who declares that Seabiscuit is not a horse to be taken seriously) and Pollard's anger issues and blind eye, Seabiscuit begins to earn considerable success and becomes an extremely popular underdog for the millions affected by the Great Depression. Seabiscuit gave hope to everyone hurt by the Great Depression, that they could also stand up and be counted. The rich didn't bet on Seabiscuit, it was the poor people with only a quarter in their pockets. People came in droves to watch the horse run races.
Inspired, Howard tries repeatedly to provoke a race (by offering a purse of $100,000) with the mocking New York tycoon Samuel Riddle (Eddie Jones) owner of the East Coast champion and Triple Crown-winning racehorse War Admiral.Seabiscuit loses one race when Red cannot see a competing horse come up from behind in the final stretch. Smith realizes that Red is blind in one eye. Howard refuses to fire Red. Howard goes on a publicity tour, raising public pressure for a match race against War Admiral.Riddle eventually relents to a match race on his terms (on his home track and on his own rules) between War Admiral and Seabiscuit, but while the date approaches, Pollard is injured in a riding accident, fracturing his leg. When the doctor reports that he will be unable to ride again, Red suggests that Howard get an old friend, the successful jockey George Woolf (Gary Stevens) to be Seabiscuit's new rider.
The highly anticipated "race of the century" draws a sellout crowd, with 40 million more people listening on the radio. Seabiscuit takes an early lead until the far turn; following Pollard's advice, Woolf lets Seabiscuit look War Admiral in the eye before surging ahead, and Seabiscuit wins by four lengths, delighting the nation.A few months later, Seabiscuit injures his leg. Pollard, still recovering from his own injured leg, tends to the horse as they both heal. When Seabiscuit is fit enough to race again, Howard brings him back to the Santa Anita Handicap, but is reluctant to allow Pollard to ride and risk crippling himself for life. At the urging of Woolf and Marcela, Howard relents.
Pollard, using a self-made leg brace, finds himself and Seabiscuit facing Woolf in the race. Seabiscuit drops far behind the field until Woolf pulls his horse alongside Pollard, allowing Seabiscuit a good look at his mount. With Woolf's encouragement, Seabiscuit surges ahead and passes the others. Heading for the finish line several lengths ahead, Pollard explains that the story of Seabiscuit is not merely of three men who fixed a broken-down horse, but that Seabiscuit fixed them, and, in a way, they fixed one another.
