“Seabiscuit” by Laura Hillenbrand – An Unlikely Legend

We are used to sports players being on the receiving end of untold amounts of fame and riches for their ability to play their game and entertain the crowd.

However, it is far less common for animals to be awarded the same honor, but that didn’t stop the entire nation from falling in love Seabiscuit, the racing horse whose life is the quintessential underdog story.

In Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand chronicles the fate of the racing horse from beginning to end, as well as the lives of the men who stuck together through thick and thin and helped to make a legend from the most unlikely underdog possible.

These three men are Charles Howard, an overweight millionaire, Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from Colorado, and Red Pollard, an unsuccessful, half-blind and half-crippled boxer as a jockey.

To be frank, I the amount of attention this book was getting and my lack of familiarity with Seabiscuit’s story made me want to see what all the fuss was about. From an objective point of view, this is perhaps one of the most inspirational biographies ever written, and that goes double considering its main subject was a horse.

It tells the story of the struggles faced by the horse and its owners with a lot of soul, depth and detail, making it feel more like a novel than anything else. We are made to feel the despair the men experience in the face of seemingly-unsurmountable doom, as well as the overwhelming sense of joy and accomplishment once history was made. I’d have to say that Seabiscuit’s story is the quintessential “underdog becomes champion” tale, and it is a very heartwarming one at that.

Now, from a subjective point of view, I found this to be just a good inspirational story. To be frank, I never truly understood or agreed with athletes and celebrities garnering so much fame so as to exceed international tragedies in terms of importance, and the fact that it happened with a horse made me a bit more confused and exasperated.

At the peak of his fame, Seabiscuit received more coverage than important political figures of the time, such as Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler. No matter how uplifting Seabiscuit’s story might have been, in my eyes the phenomenon grew way out of proportion. I just had to get that out there.

Returning to the objective point of view, if you wanted to learn about Seabiscuit’s story and read about the horse’s life in a way you can experience it, then Seabiscuit is precisely the book you are looking for. It is fun, charming, factual, and really serves to demonstrate that even impossible odds can potentially be overcome.

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Laura Hillenbrand Laura Hillenbrand is an author of American origin, writing books as well as occasional magazine articles. Her first book, Seabiscuit: An American Legend won her the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and her second book, Unbroken, surely hasn’t failed to attract its fair share of followers.