The bell rang in Pollard's ears, and he felt Seabiscuit drop and push beneath him, hammering the track and powering forward. There was the rushing sound of seventy-five thousand voices and the tumbling motion of horses and the flight of wind and dirt and the airy unreal feeling of mass and gravity slipping away.
They rolled down the homestretch for the first time, Pollard felt the rightness of Seabiscuit's stride, the smooth strumming under him. Whichcee had the lead. Pollard let Seabiscuit hunt him. They bent through the first turn, Pollard holding his mount one path from the rail, an open lane ahead. A splendid spot.
Pollard could sense the pace as they straightened down the backstretch: blistering fast. But he knew Whichcee had stamina, and he couldn't let him steal away. He had to drive Whichcee hard to break him. He held Seabiscuit a half length behind him, keeping just far enough out from the rail to give himself clear running room. Whichcee strained to stay ahead. The two horses blazed down the backstretch together, cutting six furlongs in 1:11 1/2; though they were set to run a grueling mile and a guarter, the fastest sprinters on earth would have been drained to the bottom to beat such a time. Whichcee screamed along the rail, stretching out over the backstretch, trying to hold his head in front. Seabiscuit stalking him with predatory lunges. Wedding Call tracked them, just behind and outside of Seabiscuit as they pushed for the far turn. They clipped through a mile in 1:36, nearly a second faster than Seabiscuit and War Admral's record-shattering split in their 1938 match race. Seabiscuit still pushed at Whichcee. Pollard, up in the saddle, was a lion poised for the kill.
They leaned around the final turn, and Seabiscuit pulled at Pollard's hands, telling him he was ready. The rail spun away to the left, and Whichcee's hindquarters rose and fell beside them. Wedding Call made his move, throwing his shadow over them from the right. Pollard stayed where he was, holding his lane one path out from the rail, leaving himself room to move around Whichcee when the time came.
The field was gathering, and the space around them compressed. Horses were all around, their bodies elongated in total effort. Then, in an instant, they came inward with the synchronicity of a flurry of birds pivoting in the air. Wedding Call clattered up against Seabiscuit, bumping him toward the rail behind Whichcee. The path ahead closed.
Seabiscuit felt the urgency and tugged at the reins. Pollard had nowhere to sent him. He rose halfway up in the saddle, holding Seabiscuit back, his leg straining under the weight. Whichcee and Wedding Call formed a wall in front of him. A terrible thought came to Pollard: There is no way out.
A jockey in the pack heard a deep, plaintive sound rise up over the shouts from the crowd. It was Pollard, crying out a prayer. A moment later, Whichcee wavered and sagged a few inches to his right just as Wedding Call's momentum carried him slightly to the right. A slender hole opened before Seabiscuit. Pollard measured it in his mind. Maybe it was wide enough; maybe it was not. If Pollard tried to take it, it was highly likely that he would clip his right leg on Wedding Call. He knew what that would means. He needed an explosion from Seabiscuit, every amp of his old speed and more. He leaned forward in the saddle and shouted, "Now Pop!"
Carried 130 pounds, 22 more than Wedding Call and 16 more than Whichcee, Seabiscuit delivered a tremendous surge. He slashed into the hole, disappeared between his two larger opponents, then burst into the lead. Pollard's leg cleared Whichcee by no more than an inch. Whichcee tried to go with Seabiscuit. Pollard let his mount dog him, mocking him, and Whichcee broke. Seabiscuit shook free and hurtled into backstretch alone as the field fell away behind him. Pollard dropped his head and rode for all he was worth. Joe Hernandez's voice cut over the crowd, calling out Seabiscuit's name, and was instantly swallowed in the uproar from the grandstand. One of the stable hands yelled to Marcela that Seabiscuit had the lead. She shrieked.
In the midst of all the whirling noise of that supreme moment, Pollard felt peaceful. Seabiscuit reached and pushed and Pollard folded and unfolded over his shoulders and they breathed together. A thought pressed into Pollard's mind: We are alone.
Twelve straining Thoroughbreds; Howard and Smith in the grandstand; Agnes in the surged crowd; Woolf behind Pollard, on Heelfly; Marcela up on the water wagon with her eyes squeezed shut; the leaping shouting reporters in the press box; Pollard's family crowded around the radio in a neighbor's house in Edmonton; tens of thousands of roaring spectators and millions of radio listeners painting this race in their imaginations: All this fell away. The world narrowed to a man and his horse, running.
In the center of the track, a closer broke from the pack and rolled into Seabiscuit's lead, a ghost from his past. It was Kayak, charging at him with a fury. Pollard never looked back. He knew who it was.
Pollard felt a pause. For the last time in his life, Seabiscuit eased up to tease an opponent. Kayak came to him and drew even. Up on Kayak, Buddy Haas had never heard such thunder as was pouring from the grandstand and infield. He drilled everything he had, he said later, at Seabiscuit.
Pollard let Seabiscuit savor this last rival, then asked him again. He felt the sweet press of sudden acceleration. A moment later, Pollard and Seabiscuit were alone again, burning over the track, Kayak spinning off behind, the wire crossing overhead.