Seabiscuit An American Legend [signed]

Hardcover. 4to. Random House, New York. 2003. 400 pages. Illustrated with black and white plates. Signed by Lauren Hillenbrand on the FFEP page. First, thus (First Edition, First Printing of the Illustrated Edition). DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities. No ownership marks present. Bound in cloth covered boards with titles present to the spine. Boards have light wear present to the extremities. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. He didn't look like much. With his smallish stature, knobby knees, and slightly crooked forelegs, he looked more like a cow pony than a thoroughbred. But looks aren't everything; his quality, an admirer once wrote, "was mostly in his heart." Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of the horse who became a cultural icon in Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Seabiscuit rose to prominence with the help of an unlikely triumvirate: owner Charles Howard, an automobile baron who once declared that "the day of the horse is past"; trainer Tom Smith, a man who "had cultivated an almost mystical communication with horses"; and jockey Red Pollard, who was down on his luck when he charmed a then-surly horse with his calm demeanor and a sugar cube. Hillenbrand details the ups and downs of "team Seabiscuit," from early training sessions to record-breaking victories, and from serious injury to "Horse of the Year"--as well as the Biscuit's fabled rivalry with War Admiral. She also describes the world of horseracing in the 1930s, from the snobbery of Eastern journalists regarding Western horses and public fascination with the great thoroughbreds to the jockeys' torturous weight-loss regimens, including saunas in rubber suits, strong purgatives, even tapeworms. EB; Special Illustrated Collector's Edition; 10.2 X 8.4 X 0.9 inches; Signed by Author