Racing in the Rain

Some horses don't run as well on a wet track, some run better. For years, Relaunch was known as a sire whose offspring moved up on a sloppy track. There is also the concern that a sloppy or muddy track won't be as safe as a fast one.

And track maintenance has changed over the years. Nowadays, tracks are sealed when it's about to rain — the tractors pull a flat float over the surface to compress the dirt so the rain will bounce off it instead of soaking through to the base. In Seabiscuit's day, you'd see tracks rated "heavy," because they were thick goo after rain.

After Howard bought Seabiscuit, he ran three times on tracks rated muddy or sloppy and finished third each time. A couple of those races were when Seabiscuit started because of the pressure of having a large crowd turn out to see him. He also missed a couple races, including a proposed 1937 meeting with War Admiral, because muddy tracks compromised his training.

And Seabiscuit scratched out of a meeting with War Admiral in the 1938 Mass Cap because the track was muddy. War Admiral, who had caught flak for scratching from the Suburban when an off-track was anticipated, ran and finished fourth, the only time in his career he finished out of the money.

As stated in the 1938 volume of American Race Horses, after being pelted with criticism for scratching Seabiscuit from the Mass Cap, Howard and trainer Tom Smith "stated that Seabiscuit would only be started when they felt it was just to the horse and he was in condition to do his best; that he could not do it over a muddy track and it was unfair to him and the public to race him over one, as he would be heavily backed to win and he might not be able to do so."

Johnstown (1939) and Riva Ridge (1972) could have been Triple Crown winners, but both got beat by inferior horses on muddy tracks in the Preakness. Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox got beat on a heavy track by a 100-1 shot in the 1930 Travers.