Genre:
History [nf]
Release Date: 01/01/2001
Sound: DS
Run Time:
Distributor/Studio: PBS Home Video
Acknowledged as one of the greatest thoroughbred racehorses of the 1930s,
Seabiscuit is the archetypal example of the extreme long shot who made good. Too squat, knobby-kneed, disheveled, and off-colored, the horse would have been written off as a total loss by anyone except the triumvirate of dedicated men who transformed this unpromising property into a winner: wealthy, stubborn owner
Charles Howard, indefatigable trainer
Tom Smith, and washed-up jockey
Red Pollard, to whom
Seabiscut represented the proverbial "last clear chance." So famous and popular that even
President Franklin D. Roosevelt worked the horse's name into his public appearances,
Seabiscuit also underlined the schism between the freewheeling, take-a-risk West Coast racing establishment and the snobbish, conservative East Coasters. Among the interviewees in this one-hour TV
documentary is author
Laura Hillenbrand, whose best-selling book
Seabiscuit: An American Legend sparked a widespread revival of interest in the champion horse.
Seabiscuit was originally a presentation of the
PBS anthology
American Experience.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide