WILLITS, Calif. – Ridgewood Ranch in Northern California looks like the idyllic Western spread. The old mare and stallion barns nestle among other buildings in a valley tucked in the Mendocino County hills. A horse and a few head of cattle nod drowsily in a paddock. At this time of the year, grass naps the coastal hills like golden cloth, studded with dark oak trees, nature's tapestry backdrop to the ranch buildings.
But Ridgewood is no ordinary picturesque ranch. It's here that the racehorse Seabiscuit spent the last years of his life, from 1939 through 1947, when he died of a heart attack.
The little horse, stocky and short for a racing thoroughbred, captured everyone's heart during the 1930s and early '40s when his races were the Super Bowls of the day. He's still capturing hearts. His biography by Laura Hillenbrand has been on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year, and the movie based on the book was released last week.
The current ranch owner, Christ's Church of the Golden Rule, opens Ridgewood Ranch for walking tours on certain weekend days during this summer and fall. The tour begins with a short film, not at all a Hollywood slick flick, but a digitally restored film based on home movies made by Dr. Raymond Babcock, a friend of Charles Howard, Seabiscuit's owner. You'll see images of the shining bay horse coming out of his van into the paddock, and his diminutive, smiling jockey, Red Pollard. You'll also get a Seabiscuit cookie – a thick gingerbread sweet in the shape of a horse head.
Numerous photographs of the famous horse decorate the ranch's dining hall. Tracy Livingston, the church representative who leads some of the tours, found many of them not long ago in the ranch house. He has a treasure trove of Seabiscuit stories. He shows us the Howard red-and-white jockey silks on display and the leather sliver of a racing saddle. Surely this wasn't meant for sitting, and in truth, it was just a slight buffer between jockey's bottom and horse's back.
Outdoors, Mr. Livingston points to the ranch house, which was close to the stallion barn and Seabiscuit's paddock.
"Mr. Howard wanted to be able to see his horse at all times," he said. Bing Crosby, another racehorse owner, was a frequent guest at the house.
A customized weathervane of a jockey on a horse patterned after Seabiscuit tops the stallion barn. High above the door is the red-and-white logo featuring an "H" within a triangle, which also appeared on Mr. Pollard's silks.
A few years ago, when Mr. Livingston was painting the barn, he found the logo under a layer of paint and restored it. The Willits Rotary Club is now restoring the barn interior, based on the memory of a woman who lived on the ranch during the late 1940s. Seabiscuit's stall took up an entire corner, alongside the space where the grooms slept between two of the four horses kept in the barn. Other Howard stallions – Kayak, who won his share of races, and Pumpkin – kept Seabiscuit company.
The long, low mare barn is some distance away. The names of its female inhabitants are still visible, penciled on the stall doorframes – Her Highness and Flying Santa among them. Mr. Livingston demonstrates the ingenious design. Hay could be dropped into a stall through a chute in the ceiling, and feed could be put in a swiveling trough so it was not necessary to enter the stall to do these chores.
The scale for weighing the horses is still under a shed. Seabiscuit loved to eat, and when he was recovering from injuries or not racing, he often exceeded his racing weight of about 1,000 pounds. The grooms also jotted the weights on the shed frame, and the numerals 1,260 at one side supposedly represent Seabiscuit's weight.
The tradition of opening Ridgewood Ranch is not new. Mr. Howard used to put a sign on U.S. Highway 101 announcing Seabiscuit viewing times. During 1940, 40,000 people stopped by. They came not only to see famed thoroughbred, but the horses he sired, which were known as "Little Biscuits." Mr. Howard even put bleachers up beside the Seabiscuit paddock.
During the tour, a woman with gray hair briefly joined the group. "I remember coming out here as a child to see Seabiscuit," she said, pointing to the now empty spot with summer-dried grass and powdery dirt. Through her mind's eye, you could almost see the horse.
Seabiscuit fever has taken over the nearby town of Willits. The Chamber of Commerce tourist information office sells buttons, T-shirts, caps and tote bags with the image of the famous horse. The movie had its premiere in Willits at the old Noyo Theater one week before the Hollywood premiere and national opening.
One morning, a visitor came into the office and complained that one of the two bronze life-size statues of Seabiscuit ought to be at Ridgewood Ranch, where it was during the 1940s. Mr. Howard commissioned the sculpture and had two of them cast. One is at Santa Anita Racetrack in Southern California, where Seabiscuit won his last race, and the other is at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame at Saratoga, N.Y.
"It's amazing the number of people who come in here with stories," said Lynn Kennelly of the Willits Chamber of Commerce. "People are so interested in this, and it's not necessarily people who are old enough to remember the horse."
Seabiscuit's death in 1947 broke Mr. Howard's heart. He had one of the ranch hands take the horse to a remote spot in the ranch and dig his grave.
Later, Mr. Howard planted an oak on the spot to mark the site. To this day, the location remains unknown.