War admiral, the evil horse

Rating: 7/10 (30 July 2003)

I'll first start off by saying that this was a good movie. The first 40 minutes were close to unwatchable because they were boring and pointless, but the movie took off after that and had me glued to the screen. The footage during races was as close to the real thing as it gets. The camera work was amazing, though sometimes it changed angles too often in a race and made you dizzy. Cooper, Bridges, and Tobey were all well cast and did a fine job, Cooper especially. Now as far as the factual events of this movie, how they painted War Admiral was a disgrace. I know they wanted to do this because they felt it would add to the legend of Seabiscuit and make it a better movie, but when its supposed to be a true story, at least tell it like a true story. Seabiscuit was a great, courageous horse with the heart of a lion but this could have been told with painting War Admiral as the evil, overrated, heartless horse. First off, War Admiral was 15.2 hands, not over 18 hands like the movie tells. The two horses were basically the same size. Seabiscuit, in fact outweighed the Admiral. Those are the facts that the movie got wrong. Next are the things they conveniently decided to leave out. In the movie, it appears that War Admiral is ducking Seabiscuit for months and refuses to race him. What they don't tell is that twice before the match race, both horses were scheduled to race each other (once in a match race, the other in a stakes), and both times Seabiscuit was scratched by Howard. The first came in a $100k winner-take-all match race at belmont park on May 30th. After arriving at belmont on April 25th, Seabiscuit didnt train well after the long cross country trip and was scratched. Next came the Massachusetts Handicap on June 29, in which both horses entered and were weighted at 130. It rained the day of the race, turning the track into mud so 45 minutes before the race, Seabiscuit was once again scratched. The movie also forgot to mention that after the match race Riddle asked for a rematch in the nine-furlong Rhode Island Handicap at Narragansett Park in which both horses were eligible for. However, Howard once again withdrew his horse because the rematch would be only 11 days after the match race. The movie paints War Admiral as this horse that was born with all the skills and never had to work because of his god given talent. They don't mention that he was smaller than most of the horses he faced. They don't mention that he routinely gave up 5-15 lbs to horses that were bigger and older than him. They don't mention that in the Belmont Stakes, War Admiral ripped off an inch of his hoof at the start, then proceeded to run a mile and a half, leaving his rivals in the dust, and breaking the track record in the process. The hoof injury was not discovered untill his trainer spotted him in the winners circle standing in a pool of blood. Talk about heart. Riddle also got the short end of the stick. It wasn't mentioned in the movie how graceful he was after the match race, offering no excuses, only asking for a rematch which was not granted by Howard. The movie told a great story and elevated Seabiscuit to warrior status but did a great injustice to War Admiral that will probably never be erased. From now on non-racing fans and casual fans of the sport will remember the War Admiral that was portrayed in the movie, not the one in this review, which was the real War Admiral.