This is a great history of Seabiscuit, the racehorse. I picked it up because of the previews I'd seen in the theater and was captivated. The author did a great job of describing the jockey world and cleared up a few things I didn't understand. I found myself rooting for the horse all the way through.

People who like horses, people who like dramas, people who go for the underdog

Having seen the previews (and just the fact that it was made into a movie), I *knew* Seahorse was going to win the much-anticipated race. However, as the book proceeded, she managed to build the tension and even trick us, no mean feat for a non-fiction book!

Some of the paragraphs went on and on. I wanted to hear more about the horse and less about the owner.

Also, I would have liked some more pictures of Seabiscuit.

read "The Black Stallion", which I haven't read since I was about ten. Now that a lot of the racing stuff was explained, that book made more sense.

Then I wanted to see the movie, but sadly it was in between the theater and the rentals.

Absolutely horrified. I thought supermodels starved themselves, but the jockeys have it beat. There is one section where it describes how in the middle of summer, the jockeys would dress in tons of clothes and burrow into an enormous pile of manure, hoping to sweat off weight.

did a fantastic job. Everything is footnoted, right down to the conversational remarks. She must have done a ton of research.

it was very exciting to read, even if you are not a horse lover. However, I think you have to have some type of pleasent feeling toward horses to get anything out of it.

If you don't like horses, I don't think you will enjoy it.

The scenes about the jockeys are part of the reason I think this is PJ, but even worse are the scenes of race catastrophes. I have a vivid imagination, and there were some pretty ghastly collisions going on in the racing world.

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Created Dec 17, 2003 at 4:37pm • Submit your own review...