Re: Will Somebody Please Read This and put down their opinion!
by Tulloch
We hear a lot of "if only's" these days when it comes to comparing horses from different eras, if only they could have met on the track and raced each other, then we'd know who was the best. Man O'War and Secretariat are a classic example of this "need to know" mentality that surrounds Champions from the past.
With War Admiral and Seabiscuit the situation was different, two great horses at their peak and a lot of skiting going on by the connections of both horses as to which horse was the better.
There's no doubting War Admirals greatness, but on November 1, 1938 Seabiscuit beat him fair and square, and not by a narrow margin, but a widening 4 lengths.
Did this race prove that Seabiscuit was a better horse than War Admiral ? if you were to have asked the Howard camp the answer would have been a resounding "YES".
To me it didn't prove that Seabiscuit was better physically but much more superior mentally, War Admiral was used to dictating the pace in his races, but when Seabiscuit burnt WA off from the start and took control of the race, the Admiral couldn't cope with his favoured racing pattern being disrupted.
You have to remember too that Seabiscuit's racing style had to be changed for this race as well, he was ridden from the start with the whip to get the lead, so you'd have to say he handled the race better "mentally" than War Admiral did.
To me they were both great, but if I had to have my life riding on one of them it would have been Seabiscuit.
