No Question Here

At Santa Anita Park on March 2, 1940, Seabiscuit burned under the wire, winning the Santa Anita Handicap, leaving his stablemate, Kayak II, a length and a half behind. The smashing triumph, delivered in record time, provided a storybook ending to Seabiscuit’s extraordinary career.

Six decades later, speculation has arisen concerning the race: Was Seabiscuit the rightful winner, or was Kayak forced to take a dive so his stablemate could win? In the four years that I researched Seabiscuit for my book, “Seabiscuit: An American Legend,” I studied this question exhaustively. In doing so, I discovered a host of compelling facts that led me to an unavoidable conclusion: Kayak could not have won.

At first glance, Kayak’s case seems feasible. Before the race, Charles Howard, owner of both Seabiscuit and Kayak, had Seabiscuit “declared to win,” meaning that if his horses were running one-two, Kayak could be held back, if necessary, so Seabiscuit could win. Because the horses made up a single betting interest, this was perfectly legal.

In the race, Seabiscuit entered the stretch with the lead as Kayak moved into second. As Seabiscuit pulled away in the final 16th of a mile, Kayak’s jockey, Buddy Haas, didn’t whip his mount, leading some witnesses to believe that Kayak could have run faster. Asked about the finish, Haas stated, publicly and privately, that he could have won if he had urged Kayak harder.

Case closed? Hardly.

Although some spectators believed that Kayak had more to give at the finish, many were convinced that he didn’t. With film of the race far too murky to settle the issue, Haas’ claims that he could have won form the backbone of the Kayak argument. The problem is that Haas also made repeated, adamant statements, both publicly and privately, that he couldn’t have won.

“I did not pull up on Kayak II,” went one statement in a newspaper clipping in a scrapbook kept by the Howard family. “I let him run all the way down the stretch and he could not have beaten Seabiscuit.”

Howard was quoted in the Los Angeles Examiner as having said he’d taken Haas aside and asked the jockey to tell him honestly if he could have won, assuring him that he’d be happy with either answer. Haas replied that Kayak couldn’t have outrun Seabiscuit.

But as I wrote in my book, whatever Haas truly believed -- he had a motive to shade the truth either way -- his opinion and those of other witnesses are moot. Even if it could be proven that Kayak had more to give, it by no means proves that he had a closing kick powerful enough to vanquish Seabiscuit, who was still sprinting at the finish. Indeed, the histories of both horses strongly suggest that he did not.

In the months before the Handicap, Kayak had twice raced against Challedon, the 1939 horse of the year and the only other horse Kayak had faced who was roughly in Seabiscuit’s league. In both races, Kayak seized the lead on the far turn, only to have Challedon sweep past to win. Challedon was a terrific racehorse, but not as good as Seabiscuit.

Whereas Kayak’s record of responding to challenges was iffy, Seabiscuit’s was anything but. One can make a convincing argument that Seabiscuit was better in a head-to-head fight than any other horse in history. He so relished combat that he made a habit of decelerating in midstretch to let horses catch up, then annihilated them.

His performance improved so dramatically when he was challenged that in his epic match race against Triple Crown winner War Admiral, his jockey, George Woolf, chose to employ the shocking tactic of slowing him down midrace so War Admiral could draw alongside. “I let War Admiral catch up,” Woolf said at the time. “The ‘Biscuit runs best when a horse is driving him.”

Though the strategy appeared suicidal, it proved brilliant: Inspired by the battle, Seabiscuit trounced War Admiral and shattered the track record.

That performance was no anomaly. Fouled severely and nearly losing his jockey at the start of the 1938 Santa Anita Handicap, Seabiscuit recovered to unleash a half-mile split that was two seconds faster than the world record, passing 11 horses to take the lead on the far turn.

To witnesses, a collapse seemed inevitable after such a blistering display of speed, especially as Seabiscuit was carrying a whopping 130 pounds and still had a long way to go. But when Stagehand, carrying only 100 pounds, caught him, Seabiscuit accelerated so explosively and fought so ferociously that trainer Leonard Dorfman, who witnessed the race, wept with admiration and wonder at what he still regards as the greatest performance he ever saw.

In the days before the Handicap, Kayak had experienced just how murderous Seabiscuit’s closing kick was. In their previous race, six days before the Handicap, Kayak had labored in vain as Seabiscuit had cruised away to win easily in track-record-equaling time. In a head-to-head workout days later, Seabiscuit had toyed with Kayak, then beat him again.

For me, Dorfman and a phalanx of horsemen and journalists who knew both horses, Seabiscuit’s singular tenacity, coupled with Kayak’s futility against Challedon and Seabiscuit himself, make the case for Kayak implausible.

Seabiscuit’s jockey, Red Pollard, said it best, telling famed turf writer David Alexander: “It may have seemed that [Kayak could have passed Seabiscuit], but you have to ride Seabiscuit to know him. No horse is ever going to pass him, once he gets to the top and the wire is in sight. He’s just too game. A horse racing alongside him just makes him run all the harder.” Many others, including most of the jockeys and prominent reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Racing Form, Los Angeles Examiner and other major publications, agreed.

Alexander, who wrote for the Daily Racing Form and the Morning Telegraph and had covered both horses more closely than any other journalist, wrote: “Had [Kayak] ever got to Seabiscuit’s saddle girth, Seabiscuit would have come on again and won anyway.”

Woolf, who had ridden both horses, laughed at the speculation. “If Kayak had charged at him ... [Seabiscuit] would have bounded away,” he told announcer-writer Clem McCarthy. “That fellow never saw the day when he could take the champ.”

Even Buddy Haas conceded this point, telling his sister-in-law, Dorothy Shull, that Kayak had more to give at the finish, but “if challenged ... Seabiscuit probably would have had more kick.”

To speculate about Kayak is to miss what is by far the most important fact about the race: By any measure, Seabiscuit delivered an astounding performance, running a vastly better race than Kayak or any other horse. He helped set an excruciatingly fast pace for a distance race; the split time for six furlongs was as fast as, or faster than, the winning time for five of the 10 previous runnings of the era’s premiere sprint, the Toboggan.

The pace would have left an ordinary horse staggering, but Seabiscuit came down the stretch full of run. Carrying more weight than any other horse, he scorched the final quarter and clocked the second-fastest 10 furlongs in U.S. racing history.

Kayak was a grand racehorse, but he wasn’t robbed of the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap. He lost because, on that day and every other, he was no Seabiscuit.