When Red has the accident and the horse is trying to get on its feet there is a clear view of the stuntman's face. See more...
Many of the close-ups in the movie were filmed with mechanical horses attached to the truck with the camera so that the background would look right when you see the actors going by trees. See more...
Directed by Gary Ross, starring Jeff Bridges, Tobey Maguire (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
The doctors tell Red he has broken his leg in 13 places, however only one break is visible on the x-ray. [As someone already mentioned, enough time has passed for most of the fractures to heal. The X-ray the doctor is examining was taken about a year after the accident, not immediately following it.]
Red's parents didn't lose their money in the stock market, as the movie shows. His parents owned a brick-building company and lost their business in a flood. They ended up on the streets eventually, just not in the way the movie portrays. (It's in the book) [The movie never says Red's family was victim of the stock market, the movie just shows the family being in the same place that many other stock-market crash victims reside. To assume Red's family did lose their money by the movie's suggestion, is just that; an assumption.]
In the scene where Mr. Howard is talking to the reporters about a match race with War Admiral, when the camera is on him at the train station, in the sky behind him you can see jet contrails. Jets weren't invented yet in 1936 or so. [While it is true that jet engines were not yet invented at this time, piston-engined aircraft can also produce contrails. Contrails are caused by water vapour in the aircraft exhaust that freezes - what we see are simply ice crystals. There are many photos taken during during the Second World War that show contrails left by B-17 bombers as well as fighter aircraft. Therefore, while the inclusion of contrails was probably accidental, it's not entirely implausible.]
At the start of the last race it shows the horses at the starting gate in a shot from behind with the helpers behind the race horses. Then it moves to the front of the starting gate, and if you look under the stalls you can't see the helpers' feet. [This is because the helpers are standing on raised parts in the starting gate. If you look carefully there's a few birds eye views of some of the starting gates at the beginning of various races. You can see the helpers are crouching on something (presumably the raised ledges).]
While Pollard is undergoing surgery in the Baltimore hospital, seated together in the waiting room are Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Tom Smith, and Seabiscuit's groom. The Howards and Smith are white, the groom is black. In 1937, Baltimore was just as segregated as any city in the Deep South. The groom would never have been allowed in the white folks' waiting room. [Baltimore is in northern Maryland, not the south and it was never a segregated state.]
Corrected by pross79
When the family is reciting the poem "We Never Know How High We Are", it is identified as being by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was really by Emily Dickinson. [The children think Red's father is going to read a poem by Longfellow, but he makes it clear by saying "Dickinson" right before he starts reading.]
Corrected by Nancy<>Felix
Samuel D. Riddle, War Admiral's owner, scoffs about Seabiscuit's 'inferior' bloodlines. Seabiscuit's grandsire was Man O' War, who was War Admiral's sire. This made Seabiscuit and War Admiral uncle and nephew. This is hardly inferior breeding. [Although it is a fact that Seabiscuit and War Admiral were closely related, Riddle actually did laugh at what he considered to be the "inferior breeding" of Seabiscuit in real life.]
During the opening scene, Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) is shown roping a wild horse. His hat changes from a wider brim to a rolled-up-at-the-sides version near the end of the sequence. [The hat is the same, it just appears to be narrower toward the end because he is running on a horse, the wind will cause the hat to roll up, especially to a man's hat in the 30's that probably has worn the same hat for a very long time.]
In the scene where Elizabeth Banks and Jeff Bridges are debating whether to let Tobey Maguire ride, they are looking at the rolling ball toy and Ms. Banks says, "I never could get the damn ball to stay in the hole." Then it cuts to a shot of her holding the toy, and you can see a corner of her mouth. Then she says "Just let him ride, Charles", but her mouth does not move. [This is incorrect, her mouth moves just fine.]
In Red's accident scene, when the horse rears up from the tractor backfire, Red is sitting normally on the horse; that is, he is facing forward with his left foot in the left stirrup and right foot in the right stirrup. After the fall, we can see Red's foot is caught and he is being dragged. The problem is, his right foot is caught in the left stirrup. How did that happen? Better question, why? It is a difficult stunt to begin with and being dragged with the free foot behind or under the horse is just too dangerous. [It does appear that Red's right foot is in the left stirrup, however, the stirrup leathers in racing saddles are just hanging in place, and when Red and the horse fell onto their left side, the right foot did not come out of the stirrup, but the stirrup folded over the top of the saddle because his foot did not release. This is not a mistake but very likely the reason he was hurt so badly.]
Jeff Bridges' son is killed in a crash. When the accident scene is shown it is obvious that models are used (as opposed to real vehicles) This is also the case with many of the steam engine train shots. [If I'm not mistaken, the "models" shown in the "accident scene" when his son is killed are actually toys that his son has with him in the car, not the vehicles themselves.]
Early in the film, Jeff Bridges bounces his baby boy, and asks if he will go to the moon one day. Then later, in the dinner party scene where Jeff Bridges is celebrating his good fortune, the camera lingers on an uncredited male - is it not Neil Armstrong himself? [If it is him, the appearance is not noted on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) although his uncredited appearances in other movies are listed.]
Red Pollard's operation for his injured leg occurs over many hours (as evidenced by the changing light and darkness on Tom Smith as he waits for the results.) Yet when the doctor appears to tell Smith that Pollard will walk again, he seems to be freshly shaven. Surely if he had just been involved in a lengthy surgical procedure, he would not have had time to shave. [Even in the 1930's it's likely that more than one surgeon would participate in a lengthy and extensive surgery, working in shifts to give each other a break or different types of specialists taking over. The doctor could have shaved and rested during such a break.]
Not having the two horses and a measuring stick in front of me, I can't be positive on this one. However, the movie emphasizes how small Seabiscuit is ("barely fifteen hands") and how big War Admiral is (eighteen hands). That would make Seabiscuit 5' tall at the wither; War Admiral would be a full 6' tall at the wither. In the match race scene, those two horses don't appear to have a full three hand (12") difference in height. [Seabiscuit stood at 15.2 hands at the withers - or about 5 feet 2 inches. War Admiral stood about 17.2H - 5 feet and ten inches. This is an eight inch difference - not twelve. When Thoroughbreds race they "shrink" close to hand and spread themselves out, so they appeared smaller than they are. Also, when racehorses are galloping down a track as fast as the two would have been going it would be nearly impossible to see the size difference.]
References to War Admiral's size stated that he was "almost 18 hands" tall, when in reality, War Admiral was only 15.2 hands tall and considered small in stature. [War Admiral did stand at almost 18 hands, Seabiscuit was the horse who stood at 15.2 hands.]
Although Red Pollard is described as breaking his leg in 11 or 12 places, an X-ray shown later to Charles Howard reveals only two fractures. [ The doctor points out the two fractures, and says that's the part of the leg that hasn't healed yet, so it can be assumed that the rest of the fractures have healed up.]
The child of Jeff Bridges and his wife in the film has brown eyes. Jeff Bridges and the actress who plays the boy's mother both have blue eyes. It's impossible for two blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed child. [Not really. If one or both blue-eyed parents had a brown eyed ancestor, they can produce a brown eyed child. Brown is the dominant gene. My boss and her hubby did it, and I am fairly certain that since the girl looks exactly like her father with brown eyes instead of blue, that it is his daughter. ;-)]
Seabiscuit's front right leg is injured and he is brought to the Howard ranch to rehabilitate. While there Red is shown massaging Seabiscuit's front left leg to restore circulation around the injury. [Though it's true he injured his right leg, both legs were in splints. Often when a horse has injured one leg, the other will also need some therapy from having to maintain all the weight while the horse is lame and there would also be considerable stiffness from being kept up in a stall while the injury healed. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to have been massaging the left leg when the right was most seriously injured.]
Tom Smith gets off his horse on the once open range and walks over to what is slowly revealed to be a barbed wire fence. He inspects and touches it in a manner that implies that he has never seen anything like it. At this point in history various forms of barbed wire had been in use for about fifty years. It is unlikely that a man of Tom Smith's age and occupation would not be familiar with it. [It's not that Tom has never seen barbed wire before; he just hasn't seen it THERE. The look on his face is sadness over the fact that the "free range" is now fenced in.]
When Seabiscuit transforms into a bitter horse, the voiceover mentions that his disposition had become like that of his sire, Hard Tack. Hard Tack was his dam, or mother. His sire, or father, was Man O' War. [Seabiscuit was sired by Hard Tack out of Swing On; Man O'War was Hard Tack's sire.]
Corrected by meburste
You may also like: The Dark Knight | The World According to Garp | Romeo + Juliet | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Hidalgo
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