Seabiscuit

I am not afraid of horses; I just have a healthy respect for them. Any animal big enough to toss me in the air, stomp me into the ground, and injure me to the point of paralysis or death, I respect and don’t mess around with. I haven’t ridden a horse since my early teens and probably never will again. I hurt enough just from existing that I don’t wish to make things worse. That doesn’t mean I cannot appreciate them or the people who do love these majestic animals; far from it. It’s just not for me. You would think that that would make a film like Seabiscuit something that wouldn’t interest me in the slightest.

Twenty-two years ago, when I first saw Seabiscuit, I was less enlightened. I was also less inclined to look at a film deeper than the surface-level story. I reviewed Seabiscuit in my mind as a mediocre film about horse racing and filed it away as something I was not likely to revisit. Fast forward to the beginning of this review project I am currently working through, and I see Seabiscuit on the list. I knew it would eventually come up and that I would have to revisit it on that day. I dreaded the prospect because my mind’s eye was telling me it was this boring horse race movie that I didn’t like. Well, I am not above admitting I was wrong and immature all those years ago. My experience this morning was quite different from the one all those years ago. And, to my surprise, I discovered that this isn’t really a film about horse racing at all, although that is a proponent of it. Much like The Big Year is not really a film about bird watching, Seabiscuit is not about the racing. It is about broken people finding something that not only fixes them but gives them purpose again. This is a concept that most people can understand and emphasize with. 

This is based on a true story. The setting is the early 20th century as America is entering into the automobile age. Where once the poor had horses and the rich had automobiles, that dynamic is starting to swap. Charles S. Howard (Jeff Bridges) opens a bicycle shop in San Francisco. It doesn’t take long before he falls in love with the automobile, though, and shifts to selling those instead, becoming the largest car dealer in California and one of the richest men in the entire Bay Area. 

Meanwhile, Canadian John “Red” Pollard (Michael Angarano), the oldest son of the Pollard family, has discovered a love for riding horses. When the Great Depression hits, financially ruining his family, he is sent to live with a horse trainer to help provide for himself. Years later, Red (now played by Tobey Maguire) becomes a jockey and amateur boxer. The beatings taken in the ring, though, leave him blind in one eye, a condition he hides from his bosses lest he lose his position as a jockey. 

Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) is a horse trainer who uses his own unique style of training to successfully tame them. More recently, he has dedicated his time and efforts to taking care of a horse with a broken leg that was slated for execution. Charles, having lost his son to an automobile accident and his wife to divorce, travels to Mexico where he meets Tom. He hires him to work with and train a stable of racehorses he has just acquired. While there, Tom sees Seabiscuit, a colt that is the grandson of the great racehorse Man o’ War and has been unsuccessfully trained by the renowned James E. Fitzsimmons. Seabiscuit is considered unmanageable, lazy, and small, but Tom sees something in him and convinces Charles to buy him. Tom also witnesses Red, who is in Mexico trying to make his mark as a jockey but failing because of his temperamental spirit. Something about this inspires Tom, who hires him as Seabiscuit’s jockey. 

Through Tom’s training and understanding of the horse, Seabiscuit begins winning races. As his popularity grows, Charles sees an opportunity to cash in on the newfound celebrity by challenging the reigning champion, War Admiral. But as the race approaches, Red is injured when another horse he is riding is spooked, resulting in Red’s leg being fractured in nearly a dozen places and being told he will never ride again. From his hospital bed, Red coaches the replacement rider, his old friend and competitor George Woolf (Gary Stevens), on how to handle Seabiscuit, resulting in a victory. Happy as he is by the win, Red still wants to ride and comes up with an ingenious way to make it possible, even though the doctors advise against it. On top of that, Seabiscuit suffers an injury of his own, and the road to recovery is long. The film ends with Red and Seabiscuit riding in the Santa Anita Handicap, both hurt but determined to persevere. 

“You know, everybody thinks we found this broken-down horse and fixed him, but we didn’t. He fixed us. Every one of us. And I guess in a way, we kinda fixed each other too.”

Charles Howard is a good man. That is rare amongst the wealthy. Usually, we do not see his kind of character depicted this way in film. But we need that for this narrative. We need to really like him in order for us to suffer with him when his son is killed. This accident, which happens off-screen, is senseless as many truly are. He was only fifteen at the time, though in the film, he looks to be younger, and was driving one of his father’s cars on a narrow and winding dirt road when he went over the side and was killed. The moment is brief, but it has ramifications throughout the picture. It definitely informs on how Charles handles Red later in the film, especially after it is discovered that Red has been hiding his eye blindness.

Red has a chip on his shoulder. We never really get a good explanation as to why this is other than he has a drive to win and a temper whenever he feels someone interfered with that. This comes to a head in his first race with Seabiscuit when he loses his focus on the game plan because one of the other racers fouled him. Charles calls him out, asking, “What are you so angry at?” and I asked the same question. He has a bad reputation for losing races because of that temper. Once it is called out specifically, though, it’s like it goes away suddenly, and he becomes much more pliable. That’s when he suddenly starts winning races. 

Charles loses nearly everything when he loses his son. But the Great Depression doesn’t seem to have affected him too much. Still, losing your entire family is much harder than losing your money. Not enough is said about why he gets into racing horses. When the film opens, automobiles are still a fairly new commodity. In his store, he has a sign advertising that they buy horses as part of the sale of a vehicle. We often don’t think about that part of the transition from riding horses to cars; when you switch, you have less need for the horse. This business brought him success and took away his family. He finds a new one when he starts getting into horses again, including finding a new wife, Marcela (Elizabeth Banks), and a quasi-surrogate son in Red.

With how serious much of this film is, there needed to be some levity injected in there from time to time. This is provided by William H. Macy playing “Tick Tock” McLaughlin, a radio play-by-play racing broadcaster, complete with his own sound effects. Macy is hamming it up in every scene he is in, adding laughs into an otherwise straightforward drama. It’s a very funny routine, but it does feel a little unnecessarily broad at times. Still, most of the time, it is a welcome addition that breaks up the drama here and there. 

Seabiscuit is a well-put-together picture that is deserving of all the accolades it received in 2003. It has some heavy themes that play out in some surprising ways throughout the course of the film. Its one minor weakness is in the final scene where it feels the need to spell out what we have already been shown throughout the course of the film just in case you missed the message. The line as written is nice, and Tobey Maguire delivers it well, but it is a little too much on the nose, pointing out the themes of the whole film in case you didn’t already get it. But that is a minor quibble. This has some powerful themes, and they are executed superbly in a film that has kind of gotten forgotten in recent years. These themes are still relevant and this film deserves to be seen again.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Gary Ross

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): Gary Ross

Best Art Direction: Jeannine Oppewall and Leslie Pope

Best Cinematography: John Schwartzman

Best Costume Design: Judianna Makovsky

Best Film Editing: William Goldenberg

Best Sound Mixing: Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer, and Tod A. Maitland

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Release Date: July 25, 2003

Running Time: 141 minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Gary Stevens, William H. Macy, and Valerie Mahaffey

Directed by: Gary Ross