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Seabiscuit is an inspirational film that stars Tobey McGuire in an even better acting job in my opinion that Spiderman. The film is great in the setup because it really tells about the history in the time which the film was meant to be set in. When the film describes the Great Depression Era that ordinary citizens had to suffer through, the film uses black and white picture with a background voice instead of using the actors' voice.
The film starts off with the story of Tobey McGuire who plays the role of horse racing jockey Red Pollard. He started off by betting on horse racing and win. He then became a jockey. He has to work very hard to make ends meet as he races horses as has very little success initially. When he looses a race by the nose of a horse, he is beaten by the horse's owner and loses his job.
The other ongoing story is that of Jeff Bridges, a wealthy man who starts off making his fortune in the car business. He is able to perfect the parts of a car and make it run better using the Model T engine. He is liked by the public and has a loving family. However, tragedy strikes when his son drives one of the cars and is killed by he runs into a ditch. Bridges' wife also passes away, causing him great sadness and grief.
He closes his car business. His fortunes change when he meets a woman at a horse racing track and falls in love with her. On one night, he also meets a trainer in the woods, played by actor Chris Cooper. Cooper cares deeply about animals and knows how to take care of horses. He and Bridges' character, Charles Howard become good friends and Cooper helps Howard pick out a horse to buy. He settles on a horse named Seabiscuit who is a wild horse who a lot of attitude but has been unable to win any track races.
Seabiscuits history is told by the film as a horse that was used as a training horse, to build up the self esteem of other horses by losing races on purpose by being held back on the track. When Cooper and Howard go looking for a jockey, Cooper finds Red Pollard who has attitude issues of his own after he has to walk a horse in order to get paid.
Cooper immediately likes Pollard's attitude despite the fact that Pollard is a little too big to be a horse jackey. Cooper is able to train Seabiscuit by having him roam free to see how long and how far he can go which amazes Cooper. Seabiscuit and Red Pollard are able to have some initial success. However, when Pollard looses a race by a close margin, Cooper finds out that Tobey McGuire is blind in one eye from his days as a fighter to earn money.
Instead of getting a new jockey, Mr. Howard sticks with Pollard and makes him part of his family. Pretty soon Seabiscuit is winning races again and Mr. Howard is back in the public eye. To stir up some drama, Mr. Howard creates talk of a match race which is a one on one horse race. Mr. Howard wants Seabiscuit to face War Emblem, a horse that has won a triple crown.
War Emblem's owner from New York feels that his horse is in an entirely different class than Seabiscuit and his horse is far superior. He denies all of Mr. Howard's requests for a match race even after Howard calls him out in the newspaper and radio.
Mr. Howard enters Seabiscuit in all of the races that War Embled is on to try and get the two horses to race each other but War Emblem dropped out of all the races. Finally, the owner of War Emblem agrees to a match race. The horse racing track is to be opened to the public to accomodate the mass amounts of people who are anxious to see this show down.
To prepare for the race, Cooper decides to retrain Seabiscuit from being a horse that would make a late surge towards the end of the race to being a horse that gets out of the gate quickly and gets a lead early in the race. They practice this at night with a fire engine bell so that the media doesn't notice their strategy for the big race.
Days before the race, Red Pollard is approached by a friend of his asking if he could just ride his horse to get media attention since he is in desperate need of money. Pollard agrees but when he rides the horse, a car engine backfires, scaring the horse and causes Red Pollard to fall off the horse and break several bones.
This makes him unable to ride Seabiscuit in the big race. Red Pollard's friend who is a fellow jockey is brought in to race Seabiscuit. On the big day of the race, the horse race is initially close. However, towards the end, Seabiscuit pulls ahead and wins by many strides. Seabiscuit goes on to win another race or two before the horse breaks a bone in its leg and is unable to race.
Inspiration is gathered from Seabiscuit and Red Pollard as they learn to heal from their injuries and slowly return to racing form after everyone says that their racing careers are over. Seabiscuit and Red Pollard ride into the race with joy upon Tobey McGuire's face.
Seabiscuit is an inspirational film about overcoming the odds and challenges that life presents to you. It deals with the Great Depression and how it affected everyone in poverty. And it also deals with horse racing and how it is more than just a game where betting takes place. I loved this film and recommend it to any movie viewer.
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