Seasoned Biscuit

With much more savoir-faire than many a movie star, a little five-year-old stepped off a Pullman car at Belmont Park, N. Y. one day last week and patiently posed for dozens of cameramen who had come to greet him. The young visitor had just traveled 3,000 miles from San Francisco to keep an engagement with his uncle. The visitor's name was Seabiscuit, No. 1 money-winner of 1937, and he had come to run a $100,000 race, winner-take-all, with equally famed, four-year-old War Admiral, on Memorial Day.

A seasoned campaigner (never out of training for the past 27 months), the small (15.2 hands), broad-backed bay colt, familiarly known as The Biscuit, is a seasoned tourist as well. Last week's trip was the fourth time he had crossed the continent since his owner, San Francisco Automan Charles S. Howard, bought him two years ago at Saratoga from the late Ogden Mills.

But even this sturdy son of Hard Tack would not have enjoyed crosscountry travel 25 years ago, when most thoroughbreds were shipped in boxcars attached to slow freight trains. Today horses travel in specially built, steam-heated horse cars attached to first-class passenger trains, have all the comforts of their home stables.

Except that he played no cards, Seabiscuit spent his three-and-a-half-day journey last week in pretty much the same way as the other passengers on the Overland Limited, to which his car was attached. Accompanied by his favorite pet, a nine-year-old pony named Pumpkin, and his trainer, laconic Tom Smith, who slept on a home-sized bed next to him, Seabiscuit occupied one third of the 80-foot horse car* Owner Howard had chartered (for $1,500) for the trip. He watched the scenery through his car windows, walked around for exercise, was carefully fed only water and hay lest he get trainsick. Unlike most thoroughbreds, who are so nervous that they sleep standing up, Seabiscuit relaxed on the hay-covered floor and slept most of the time.

After showing off so graciously in front of the hundreds of admirers who met him at the station, Seabiscuit, taken to his stable, relapsed like any normal five-year-old, made an ugly face (see cut, p. 24) when his groom started to give him his bath.

*Longer than ordinary Pullmans, modern horse cars have open interiors, are partitioned into stalls to suit horse owners, can accommodate up to 24 horses.

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