Seabiscuit

The January 11, 1939 San Francisco News reported that in 1938 Seabiscuit filled more newspaper space than Adolf Hitler or Fanklin Roosevelt. The legendary thoroughbred had begun his career as a mediocre racehorse, but that changed in September 1936, here, at the Detroit Fairgrounds. Ridden for the first time by a little-known jockey named Johnny "Red" Pollard, Seabiscuit won the Governor's Handicap and then the Hendrie Handicap, his first major stakes victories. Here, with new owners Charles and Marcella Howard and new trainer Tom Smith, Seabiscuit was retrained into one of the greatest racehorses of the twentieth century. Seabiscuit's rise from obscurity, above all his 1938 triumph over Triple Crown winner War Admiral, made him a national hero during the Great Depression.