Rocky with hooves

13 April 2012

Fancy betting on an undersized horse with a bad temper and dodgy knees to dig you out of a hole?

British racing is about to, and a winner is badly needed at a time when a sport with a habit of shooting itself in the foot has been firing both barrels.

Did you know that attendances on British racecourses during June and July approached two million, with record numbers of women and younger racegoers helping fuel the current betting boom?

Or is your current perception of racing coloured by pictures of truculent jockeys threatening strike action over a mobile phone ban and absurd stories about owners and trainers staging mass withdrawals because of gripes about so-called inadequate prizemoney?

Either way, it falls to Seabiscuit to put the feelgood factor back into racing as the hype machine behind one of the most successful sport-related movies ever made cranks into action.

"The Longshot Who Became A Legend" is the slogan being used to advertise the film about a horse who went from zero to hero just as millions of post-Depression Americans were striving to do the same.

It's a decent enough catchline, but "Rocky With Hooves" would have been just as apt for a story based on the best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand, which features a heavyweight cast headed by Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper and the Spiderman star, Tobey Maguire. Not surprisingly, the British Horseracing Board view Seabiscuit as a gilt-edged opportunity to sell racing to a new audience with the right demographic profile and disposable income to match.

Marketing director Edward Coke feels racing can "ride high on the back of the Seabiscuit spirit" and is part of a promotional drive including two-for-one deals aimed at racegoers

and a guide to racing for anyone who sees the film at an Odeon cinema.

John Sanderson, who will host the Seabiscuit St Leger in his role as chief executive at Doncaster racecourse this weekend, is equally upbeat about the film's potential.

"As a one-off sponsorship this works perfectly," he said. "With all the politics going on in racing it's easy to forget we're in the entertainment industry, but a movie like this could do racing an enormous amount of good, provided it's handled right."

America, much to the delight of Universal Studios, has embraced the Seabiscuit legend with open arms. Ripples of applause broke out as the film reached its climax when I saw it in Florida last month. Talk of Oscar nominations is in the air, while Hillenbrand reported that even President Bush left the room with a tear in his eye after a special viewing at the White House in July.

Blockbuster status was officially achieved when the $100million revenue barrier was broken over the recent Labor Day weekend, and Maguire was at the Odeon in Covent Garden last night to introduce a BAFTA screening ahead of a planned British release in November. Maguire is the star of the show as Red Pollard, the feisty, half blind, Coleridge-quoting jockey who tames Seabiscuit and then partners him to a string of major successes.

The versatile Cooper provides an ideal foil as the taciturn trainer, Tom Smith and Bridges, as owner Charles Howard, combats the tragic loss of his young son by devoting himself to his horse and the relentless pursuit of a showdown match race with the charismatic East Coast champion, War Admiral.

So does racing have a potential Oscar winner on its hands? The race for Best Picture will have to be a substandard one if Seabiscuit is to get home in front, but it's a highly watchable film with the added bonus of being true, bar a few significant historical liberties.

In essence, it's a redemption tale of a group of traumatised racing men who place their faith in one horse as they strive to bounce back from what the world has thrown their way.

And if the underfire bigwigs at the BHB and the Jockey Club can't relate to that, then they can't relate to anything.

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