Every night Smith drifted off to the sound of raindrops ringing off the barn roof. Every morning he woke to the same sound. The National Weather Sevice switchboard took more phone calls in that week than ever in its history, with nearly every callers asking if the skies would clear for Seabiscuit's run at the Handicap that Saturday. The rain didn't relent and Smith had no choice but to work the horse in the mud.
Early in the week, Smith brought Seabiscuit and Kayak out together. Howard stood by the barns and blinking at the clouds, a sarcastic smile on his face. He watched as the horse slogged through the mud, Seabiscuit dogging and taunting until Kayak pinned his ears and abruptly quit. They took the two horses back to the barn and cooled them out together. Kayak, clearly frustrated, took a lunge at Seabiscuit, dragging a groom with him. Smith was pleased. Seabiscuit was his old nasty self. Got to stop working these two together.
The rain kept falling. Smith kept working the horses. Kayak handled the mud well; Seabiscuit didn't. "You know," said Howard, "I wish one thing. It's that Kayak's four mud-running legs might be attached to Seabiscuit's racing heart. Then I'd have something." the tapping of rain carried his words away.
Two days before the race, the heavens finally relented.The drying irons rolled out. Fifty track workers slogged over the course, sponging the mud out of the puddles. Slowly, the track dried.
Early on the morning of March 2, race day, groom Harry Bradshaw came down the shed row, poured a helping of oats into Seabiscuit's bucket, then stepped out from under the shed row roof. At last the sun was breaking through. Bradshaw turned his face toward it. "Be with him today," he said.
Smith came up, working a strip of buckskin in his fingers.
"He's right as rain, Mr. Smith," said Bradshaw.
"Wrong word, Harry."
The trainer stood back to let the horse eat. Seabiscuit heard his voice and nosed over his half door. Smith lay the flat of the hand on him.
"Today's the day," he said.
At eight o'clock Howard's stable agent stepped into the track secretary's office, scrawled the name Seabiscuit onto an entry slip, and dropped it into the entry box. He was the first horse entered. Then the agent dropped Kayak's name in. Rain or shine, both horses would run.
The sun was still straining to clear the east of the grandstand when the Howards pulled up to the barn. Pollard was already there. Howard looked anxiously at the jockey's leg, the brace swelling the boot, and put his hand over Pallord's shoulder. Pollard assured him that he'd be okay. Smith swung Pollard up on Seabiscuit to stretch his legs. Howard got up on his saddle horse, Chulo, Smith got on Pumpkin, and sextet trotted out to the course for a prerace blowout. Marcela walked with them to the track apron and watch them go, her hands tight on the rail. The track was dry and fast. Smith signaled to Pollard, and Seabiscuit broke off and kicked over the track. Pollard talked in Seabiscuit's ear as they whirled through a quarter mile in a scorching twenty-two seconds. Seabiscuit was ready to go. Pollard dismounted and went home to spend a few hours with Agnes.