The Best Horse in America
In 1938, as a five-year-old, Seabiscuit's success continued. On February 19, Pollard suffered a terrible fall while racing on Fair Knightess, another of Howard's horses. With Pollard's chest crushed by the weight of the fallen horse, and his ribs and arm broken, Howard had to find a new jockey. After trying three, he settled on George Woolf, an already successful rider and old friend of Pollard, to ride Seabiscuit.
Woolf's first race was the Santa Anita Handicap, the "hundred grander" that Seabiscuit had narrowly lost the previous year. Seabiscuit was drawn on the outside, and from the start, was impeded by another horse, Count Atlas, angling out. The two were locked together for the first straight and, by the time Woolf had his horse disentangled, they were six lengths from the pace. The pair battled hard, but were beaten in a photo finish by the fast finishing Santa Anita Derby winner, Stagehand (owned by Maxwell Howard, not related to Charles), who had been assigned 30 pounds (13.6 kg) fewer than Seabiscuit.
Throughout 1937 and 1938, the media speculated about a match race between Seabiscuit and the seemingly invincible War Admiral (also sired by Man o' War, Seabiscuit's grandsire). The two horses were scheduled to meet in three stakes races, but one or the other was scratched, usually due to Seabiscuit's dislike of heavy ground. After extensive negotiation, the owners organized a match race for May 1938 at Belmont, but Seabiscuit was scratched.
By June, Pollard had made a recovery and on June 23 agreed to work a young colt named Modern Youth. Spooked by something on the track, the horse broke rapidly through the stables and threw Pollard, shattering his leg, and seemingly ending his career.
Howard arranged a match race for Seabiscuit but not against War Admiral. Instead, it was against Ligaroti, a highly regarded horse owned by the Hollywood entertainer Bing Crosby and Howard's son, Lindsay, through Binglin Stable in an event organized to promote Crosby's resort and Del Mar Racetrack in Del Mar, California. With Woolf aboard, Seabiscuit won that race, despite persistent fouling from Ligaroti's jockey. After three more outings, with only one win, he was scheduled to go head to head with War Admiral in the Pimlico Special in November in Baltimore, Maryland.
Sent to race on the East Coast of the United States, on October 16, 1938, Seabiscuit ran second by two lengths in the Laurel Stakes to the filly Jacola who set a new Laurel Park Racecourse record of 1:37.00 for one mile.
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