Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Seabiscuit rides again - down the Strip

In his most recent start, Seabiscuit encountered a lot of traffic down the stretch.

Literally.

Seabiscuit - actually a life-size bronze statue of the beloved 1930s racehorse - was riding on Las Vegas Boulevard in the back of a restored 1948 Diamond T Model 201 fitted with a horse van and a California license plate touting its historic status.

At the wheel Wednesday afternoon was Tracy Livingston, president of the Seabiscuit Heritage Foundation and designated driver for the sculpture on its trip from Atlas Bronze Castings in Salt Lake City to its destination at Ridgewood Ranch near Willits, Calif.

Las Vegas was the initial stop on the statue's weeklong tour promoting the foundation, and the first opportunity for Livingston to give the Diamond T a ceremonial spin. (On the highway parts of the journey, Livingston transports the van and the statue on a bigger truck.)

"I've driven this thing one mile before today," Livingston said. "You've got to double-clutch it. It's not the smoothest ride, but I'm the kind of guy who's just going to make it work."

After Las Vegas, the Seabiscuit statue is scheduled to visit Hollywood Park, Santa Anita and Bay Meadows racetracks, along with other California sites relevant to the life of the 1938 Horse of the Year.

Its Vegas tour stop began with a photo op at the unlikely locale of the Oasis RV Resort off Blue Diamond Road.

Next came the drive along the Strip, where Livingston and the legendary thoroughbred gamely fought the grueling midday pace set by irascible Las Vegas drivers.

The vintage van made it as far as the Bellagio before turning around. The traffic left Livingston looking forward to leaving Las Vegas.

"We're supposed to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge next week," he said. "I guarantee that'll be easier than this was."

Livingston will gladly put up with Las Vegas traffic - and other indignities , such as a tire blowout to his truck on Easter Sunday near Donner Pass en route to Salt Lake - if it allows his message to be heard.

Livingston's mission is to save the remaining 5,000 acres of Ridgewood Ranch, where Seabiscuit was nursed back to health in 1939 after sustaining a leg injury, from being sold to developers.

The ranch, 2 1/2 hours north of San Francisco, has been designated as one of America's most threatened historic places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Yet the area is considered prime developable land because U.S. Highway 101 runs through it, Livingston said.

The 150-year-old working ranch contains miles of creeks, oak woodlands and old-growth redwoods along with structures built by Seabiscuit's owner , Charles Howard, who retired the horse to the ranch at the end of his racing career.

Seabiscuit died at Ridgewood in 1947 and was buried there, though his grave site was kept secret. Ridgewood is now owned by Christ's Church of the Golden Rule.

"Charles Howard's goal, stated on his deathbed in 1950, was that he never wanted the property sold," said Livingston, who has lived and worked on the ranch for 30 years. "What we're trying to do is save it."

About 100 people stopped by to check out the Seabiscuit statue Wednesday, according to Steve McBride, director of security at the Oasis RV Resort.

Among them was Stewart Moyes, a 35-year resident of Las Vegas and a former professional harness racing driver and thoroughbred trainer.

As a looped recording of Clem McCarthy's famous radio call of the 1938 Seabiscuit-War Admiral match race blared from the Diamond T's sound system, Moyes reminisced about his racing days in the big leagues of Yonkers and Roosevelt raceways, smaller or forgotten tracks such as Pocono Downs and Liberty Bell Park - even Pimlico, the site of Seabiscuit's big match-race victory.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of Moyes' racing career, though, came when he appeared as an extra in the 2003 film "Seabiscuit," for which he received the handsome payment of a boxed lunch.

"When you visit Ridgewood Ranch, you can see why Charles Howard chose it for his operation," Moyes said. "It's a very special place. Seeing all the structures, the barns, the historic buildings, it's like going back in time."

The new bronze statue of Seabiscuit, bound today for Hollywood Park and the Derby restaurant (established by Seabiscuit jockey George Woolf) in Southern California, is a replica of two cast by Western artist Tex Wheeler in 1940 and 1941.

One of the originals stands at Santa Anita, the other at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where Howard bought Seabiscuit for $8,000.

After a stop at Bay Meadows on Sunday, the sculpture will visit several other sites in the San Francisco area before winding up its tour Wednesday in Willits. It will be formally unveiled at the ranch June 23 and opened to public viewing June 30.

"I'm sure we're going to meet many Seabiscuit fans along the way," said tour representative Jacqueline Cooper, owner and breeder of the American Legend Horse Farm, which is raising Seabiscuit's descendants. "Especially since Laura Hillenbrand's book ('Seabiscuit: An American Legend') and the movie, there has been such interest in Seabiscuit's life. It's an important part of American history."

Once the Seabiscuit statue is installed at Ridgewood, the inscription on the pedestal will read, in part, "He had intelligence and understanding almost spiritual in quality."

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