In the early 20th century, as America enters the automobile age, Charles S. Howard opens a bicycle shop in San Francisco.

In the wake of the Great Depression, Canadian John "Red" Pollard's family is financially ruined, and he is sent to live with a horse trainer.

Though a grandson of the great Man o' War and trained by the renowned James E. Fitzsimmons, Seabiscuit is viewed as small, lazy, and unmanageable.

In the prestigious Santa Anita Handicap, Seabiscuit takes the lead, but Pollard's impaired vision prevents him from noticing another horse surging up on the outside.

Howard declares that Pollard will remain Seabiscuit's jockey, and rallies public support for a match race with War Admiral.

When Seabiscuit is fit enough to race again, Howard brings him back to the Santa Anita Handicap; he is reluctant to allow Pollard to ride and risk crippling himself for life.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A life-affirming, if saccharine, epic treatment of a spirit-lifting figure in sports history".

[6] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale of A to F.[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, and wrote: "The movie's races are thrilling because they must be thrilling; there's no way for the movie to miss on those, but writer-director Gary Ross and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, get amazingly close to the action.