Seabiscuit: An American Legend is the ultimate underdog story. Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion: his legs were crooked, he had a sad little tail, and he was precisely the color of mud. For two years, he floundered at the lowest level of racing, misunderstood and mishandled, as slow as growing grass, before his talent was discovered by three men. One was Tom Smith, known as “The Lone Plainsman,” a virtually mute mustang breaker who had come from the vanishing frontier, bearing the secrets of horses. One was Red Pollard, a half-blind failed prizefighter and failing jockey, who had been living in a horse stall since being abandoned at a makeshift racetrack as a boy. The third was Charles Howard, a former bicycle repairman who made a fortune by introducing the automobile to the American West. Bought for a bargain-basement price by Howard and rehabilitated by Smith and Pollard, Seabiscuit overcame a phenomenal run of bad fortune to become one of the most spectacular, dominant, and charismatic performers in sports history. Competing in the cruelest years of the Depression, the rags-to-riches horse emerged as an American cultural icon, drawing an immense and fanatical following, inspiring an avalanche of merchandising, and establishing himself as the single biggest newsmaker of 1938.