What makes Seabiscuit such a winning celebrity is that even before he died, he couldn't do the talk shows, couldn't write his autobiography and hadn't the faintest idea of how much people loved him. He was just an unhandsome little horse with a tendency to oversleep, overeat, act a little nutsy (difficult childhood) and win races.
One of the many good things about writer-director Gary Ross's captivating adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand's best-selling history of the legendary horse is its refusal to anthropomorphize him. He's what all race horses are--a bundle of ganglia, to which intelligence and personality can be imputed...