He didn't look like much. With his smallish stature, knobby knees, and slightly crooked forelegs, he looked more like a cow pony than a thoroughbred. But looks aren't everything; his quality, an admirer once wrote, "was mostly in his heart." Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of the horse who became a cultural icon in Seabiscuit: An American Legend.

Along the way, Hillenbrand paints wonderful images: tears in Tom Smith's eyes as his hero, legendary trainer James Fitzsimmons, asked to hold Seabiscuit's bridle while the horse was saddled; critically injured Red Pollard, whose chest was crushed in a racing accident a few weeks before, listening to the San Antonio Handicap from his hospital bed, cheering "Get going, Biscuit! Get 'em, you old devil!"; Seabiscuit happily posing for photographers for several minutes on end; other horses refusing to work out with Seabiscuit because he teased and taunted them with his blistering speed.

He was a cultural icon. A world-class athlete. A champion who triumphed over terrible handicaps to become a legend of the racetrack. No other racehorse has rivaled Seabiscuit's fame or his sway over the nation's imagination. Now Laura Hillenbrand unfolds the spellbinding story of this marvelous animal, the world he lived in, and the men who staked their lives and fortunes on his dazzling career. A riveting tale of grit,grace, luck, and an underdog's stubborn determination,Seabiscuit is an American classic.

Preface

PART Ⅰ

1. The Day of the Horse Is Past

2. The Lone Plainsman

3. Mean, Restive, and Ragged

4. The Cougar and the Iceman

5. A Boot on One Foot, a Toe Tag on the Other

6. Light and Shadow

PART Ⅱ

7. Learn Your Horse

8. Fifteen Strides

9. Gravity

10. War Admiral

11. No Pollard, No Seabiscuit

12. All I Need Is Luck

13. Hardball

14. The Wise We Boys

15. Fortune's Fool

16. I Know My Horse

17. The Dingbustingest Contest You Ever Clapped an Eye On

18. Deal

19. The Second Civil War

PART Ⅲ

20. "All Four of His Legs Are Broken"

21. A Long, Hard Pull

22. Four Good Legs Between Us

23. One Hundred Grand

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index