Three men, Red Pollard, Charles S. Howard, and Tom Smithcome together as the principal jockey, owner, and trainer of the championrace horse Seabiscuit, rising from individual troubled times to achieve fame and success through their association with the horse. Red's Canadian family is financially ruined by the Great Depression. Desperately needing money, his parents find Red a work situation with a horse trainer. Red eventually becomes a jockey and makes extra money through illegal boxing matches, leaving him blind in one eye. Howard runs a bicycle shop. A passing motorist asks him to repair his automobile, a new technology. Seeing an opportunity, Howard begins selling automobiles, eventually becoming the largest car dealer in California and one of the Bay Area's richest men. When his young son, Frankie, is killed in an automobile accident, Howard falls into a deep depression, eventually resulting in his wife leaving him. While in Mexico to obtain a divorce, he meets Marcela Zabala. After marrying Marcela, Howard acquires a stable of race horses. He has a chance encounter with skilled horse trainer and drifter Tom Smith. Howard hires Smith to manage his stables. Smith convinces Howard to acquire a colt, "Seabiscuit", who comes from noted lineage but had been deemed "incorrigible" by past handlers. Smith has difficulty finding a jockey able to handle Seabiscuit's temperament. After witnessing Red Pollard brawling with other stable boys, Smith sees a similar temperament to the feisty horse and hires Red as Seabiscuit's jockey. Seabiscuit and Pollard become close, and they begin to race. After overcoming early difficulties, such as a dismissive media and Pollard's anger issues and blind eye, Seabiscuit earns considerable success and becomes a popular underdog to the millions affected by the Great Depression. Inspired, Howard challenges New York tycoon Samuel Riddle and his champion race horse, "War Admiral", to a match race. Riddle eventually relents, but on his terms. As the date approaches, Pollard is injured in a riding accident, severely fracturing his leg. Unable to ride, Red recommends Howard get his old friend, George Woolf to ride Seabiscuit in the match race. Before the race, Red advises Woolf on Seabiscuit's handling and behavior. He tells Wolfe to allow War Admiral to catch up in the far turn, and let Seabiscuit look War Admiral in the eye before turning him him loose. Later Seabiscuit is racing at Santa Anita and injures his leg. Red helps Seabiscuit to recover while also getting himself fit enough to race again. The last race is again the Santa Anita Handicap. Red is the jockey, using a self-made brace on his leg. Woolf is riding a different horse. Seabiscuit has a bad break from the gate and drops far behind the pack. Woolf pulls alongside Red, lets Seabiscuit get a good look at his mount. Seabiscuit, challenged, surges ahead and wins the race.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 77% based on 203 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A life-affirming, if saccharine, epic treatment of a spirit-lifting figure in sports history". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A on scale of A to F. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 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."
