Seabiscuit Revisited

By Morton Cathro -- Here in California, where the immortal Seabiscuit first captured the public's attention and where his storybook career came to a pyrotechnic climax, there stands a leading stallion whose name pops into my head whenever I leaf through the wildly successful Seabiscuit: An American Legend, and reflect on the magnificent obsession of its brilliant if brittle author, Laura Hillenbrand. His name is In Excess.

With both a PBS documentary and a Spielberg-backed movie based on the book about to debut, it behooves one to take yet another look at one of the most exhaustively researched and finely crafted works ever written about a racehorse and his time.

If, as Mae West once suggested, too much of a good thing is wonderful, then we may be witnessing in this best-selling book a wondrous helping of excess; an excess of exuberance and heartfelt passion, of complete mastery of the active verb and story-telling technique--all of which elevate the work to its deservedly exalted heights. Only an occasional perceived hyperbole ("Tens of thousands of men, women and children vaulted over the rails...") detracts from the gripping narrative, and those doubtless arise from the author's love for her subject and apparent zeal to include every anecdote and snippet of information gleaned in four years of arduous, health-threatening research.

But such superfluous embroidery on an already beautifully woven tapestry--admittedly a nit-picking, minor sin of commission--is not what's ruffling the horse-feathers of some older readers. Rather, it's a perceived sin of omission: There's no mention in the book of a still-simmering controversy over the legitimacy of Seabiscuit's victory in the race that climaxed his career--and which also provided the necessary fairy-tale denouement to Hillenbrand's story.

Last November, in an article in the Los Angeles Times, Eclipse Award-winning Turf writer Bill Christine re-examined the question, interviewing aging horsemen and digging up decades-old published accounts on both sides of the issue: Would Seabiscuit have won the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap if his entry-mate, Kayak II, hadn't allegedly loafed in the final sixteenth after a rush to secure the second spot?

Many old-timers doubt it. Others are as adamant C.S. Howard's beloved Cinderella horse won on the square. Daily Racing Form chart footnotes favor the doubters: ("Kayak II, slow to get going, ran a sensational race to make a very strong move in the backstretch, and might have been closer to the winner had he been vigorously ridden in the last sixteenth.") Additionally, the race film shows Leon "Buddy" Haas with what appears to be a snug hold on Kayak II as other riders flail away.

The controversy's roots lie in Howard's reporting to the stewards he was "declaring to win" with Seabiscuit if the finish came down to his two horses. It grew rapidly when Paul Lowery, then the Times' Turf writer, polled trainers, owners, and other observers and reported "nine out of every 10" believed Kayak II could have won. Lowry also wrote Kayak II "finished under a pull," and Haas privately told friends he "had the best horse" (although publicly Haas said otherwise).

Now, 63 years later, fresh fuel has been tossed on the fire by Ralph E. Shaffer, unofficial point man of the "Kayak Circle" of true believers, and professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly-Pomona. A lifelong racing fan, Shaffer speculates in articles recently printed in five Los Angeles suburban dailies that Howard, known as a big bettor, may have had a separate wager on Seabiscuit in the Caliente future book where the opening line was 10-1. There would have been no payoff had Kayak II won.

In responding to Shaffer's charge that she was guilty of "literary fraud" by completely ignoring the controversy in her book, an angry Hillenbrand said that although she considered the Kayak II flap a minor issue, she included it in the early drafts of her manuscript, only to end up cutting it "at the suggestion of those who read the drafts.

"To devote several paragraphs to speculation on something I think was extremely unlikely--and which generated interest only briefly--would have shifted the narrative focus away" (from Seabiscuit's historic performance).

And, say the diehards, it also could have ruined the book's fairy-tale ending.

Retired newspaperman Morton Cathro had $2 on Wedding Call in the 1940 Big 'Cap. The horse finished fourth at 96-1.