07/24/2023
This is an original 1940 photo of Seabiscuit winning the Santa Anita Handicap. Kayak II was second and Whichee was third.
I’m going to let a close friend of Red Pollard’s describe Seabiscuit’s last race: the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap and it’s aftermath.
David Alexander had seen every great runner produced by the American Turf starting with Regret. He had a daily column in the Morning Telegraph and the Baltimore Sun and contributed articles to both Turf and Sport Digest and the Thoroughbred Record.
In 1966 David Alexander took several of his best columns and expanded them into chapters for a book entitled: A Sound of Horses: The World of Racing From Eclipse to Kelso. He dedicated one chapter to his close friend Red Pollard, known to his intimates as the Cougar, a nickname earned from his boxing days. It was called: The One-Legged Cougar and the Three-Legged Horse.
In it, David Alexander recounts Seabiscuit’s final victory in the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap, a race that had eluded him twice in the past along with a dinner conversation he had with Pollard and Yummy Allen, the jockey agent, after the race:
“For three quarters of a mile it was just another horse race. At the half mile pole, the Cougar and the Biscuit made their move hugging the rail. A horse named Whichee ridden by a tough smart boy named Basil James suddenly came over on Seabiscuit. The crowd of 80,000 seemed to hold its breath. For an instant the horse and the boy with four good legs between them seemed certain to go down. But Pollard had learned to ride the hard way in the Bull rings of the west and he managed to ease off.
Then they were in the stretch and Seabiscuit was outside and Whichee was on the inside and Pollard was squeezing the frantic James closer and closer to the rail. “I wanted to see if he could take it,” Pollard said later, “he made me take it.”
Whichee collapsed, but the Biscuit had to withstand another challenge from his own stablemate, Kayak II before he drew off to win. And even then it wasn’t over. James climbed into the steward’s stands and claimed foul. It took two minutes for the stewards to disallow the claim. Then they threw a wreath of roses over Seabiscuit’s neck and he was the greatest money winner of the world and his last race had been the greatest one of all.
That night I sat with the Cougar and Yummy and some other people in a fancy saloon owned by George Woolf, who won the match race against War Admiral on Seabiscuit.
I asked Pollard how he felt when James went up and claimed foul. The freckled flesh beneath the Cougar’s eyes crinkled and he gave me a snaggled-toothed grin.
“I’ll tell you how I felt,” he said. “I felt just fine. I thought if those dudes call me up in the stand and ask me questions, I’ll sass ‘em. This was one time I felt I could get away with sassing them. I thought, there are 80,000 people here and they all love me and Pops. If those dudes take our number down, they’ll burn the stewards’ stand with those dudes in it.”
Pollard sipped his drink and looked off into space. “You know, “he said “not a single one of those people was making a sound while I sat there waiting.”
I thought about it and he was right. The real drama hadn’t been the 121 1/5 seconds it had taken Seabiscuit to run the mile and a quarter. The drama had come during the 120 seconds that a crippled boy sat on a crippled horse waiting for three men to decide if he was, temporarily, the greatest hero in sports or just another jock who’d ridden foul.
When 80,000 people are cheering, it’s just a great big noise. When 80,000 people are completely silent, it’s damned impressive.” (pp. 189-191)
