SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) – Michael Sweeney remembers plenty about Saratoga Race Course in the 1920s and 1930s.

The lifelong horse racing fan worked at the storied track as a water boy for three years in the 1920s. He was at the race course every day and got to know every horse in competition there.

But there was one horse the 88-year-old retired judge doesn’t remember seeing or hearing about: Seabiscuit.

The horse, the subject of a popular book and movie, beat Triple Crown winner War Admiral in 1938, making him a hero to race fans across the country. At Saratoga in 1935 and 1936, though, he had a mostly forgettable record.

“His performance wasn’t very good at all and he didn’t win races,” said Tom Gilcoyne, 87, a volunteer historian at the National Museum of Racing.

Gilcoyne traveled to New York City and Boston to see Seabiscuit, but never sought out the horse at Saratoga.

Few did.

“He was a very much overlooked horse in his Saratoga career,” Gilcoyne said.

Charles S. Howard was lucky enough – or had a sharp enough eye – not to overlook the horse at Saratoga. Howard was at Saratoga in August 1936 to bid on yearling sales on behalf of Bing Crosby, and the small, homely horse caught his eye by winning a pair of races.

He bought the unproven horse for about $8,000.

Seabiscuit went on to become a success, and his popularity extended even to those who didn’t know – or care – much about horse racing. The hoopla surrounding the match race with War Admiral is something Gilcoyne and Sweeney remember well.

“Everybody talked about it, everybody was interested and it became a very, very important race,” Sweeney said. “(Samuel) Riddle, who owned War Admiral, was against the race and he said, ‘This horse is the nothing horse, Seabiscuit is from the West Coast and he’s a nothing.”‘

The “nothing horse” won and became an instant celebrity.

By 2001, Seabiscuit was again in relative obscurity.

Knowing a book about the horse would soon be released, the staff at the National Museum of Racing, located across Union Avenue from the track, began preparing an exhibit.

Artifacts from the exhibit on display include the Howard family’s scrapbook, a brace jockey Red Pollard fashioned for himself so he could ride again after an injury, and a program from the race with War Admiral.

Staff members and others bought other more obscure items – a horse racing game and playing cards – relatively cheaply. An orange crate from California bearing Seabiscuit’s name and likeness was donated by a volunteer who found it in his basement.

“Five years ago, this stuff wasn’t worth anything,” curator Kate Cravens said.

But Laura Hillenbrand’s book “Seabiscuit: An American Legend” changed that. Visitors to the museum suddenly wanted to see anything that had to do with Seabiscuit; an out-of-town book club held a meeting on the museum’s lawn next to the Seabiscuit sculpture.

“Oh, Seabiscuit stuff!” Debbie Wein cried as she stepped into the gallery recently. “It’s great to see the hands-on stuff after reading the book and seeing the movie.”

Recently, an anonymous donor lent the museum the “lucky” kangaroo-hide saddle jockey George Woolf used in Seabiscuit’s victory over War Admiral.

Saratoga is well-represented in the movie.

The race course, the Oklahoma training track across the street, the stables and the historic Canfield Casino in nearby Congress Park, are among locations used in the movie, said Linda Toohey of the Saratoga County Chamber of Congress. They were changed only slightly to match the period of the movie.

“When they have been restored or expanded, the structures and the buildings have been done with historical integrity,” she said “So, short of taking some television monitors out, there was very little they had to do.”

Toohey said there has been a “huge” interest in Seabiscuit related sites in Saratoga. And Sweeney said some of that interest may have to do with another underdog getting a lot of attention this summer- New York-bred Funny Cide, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

“Take Secretariat, he was the top horse from the start,” he said. “But these horses weren’t and they came on and beat the great horses. And just like anybody that starts out as nothing and comes up to the top, he’s admired by everybody.”

—

On the Net:

National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame: http://www.racingmuseum.org/

Saratoga Race Course: http://www.nyra.com/saratoga/

“Seabiscuit”: http://www.seabiscuitmovie.com/

“Seabiscuit: An American Legend”: http://www.seabiscuitonline.com/

AP-ES-08-30-03 1717EDT