Monday, February 6, 2012

Ridgewood Ranch, Home of Seabiscuit







The ranch where the champion racehorse Seabiscuit retired got renewed attention with the publication of Laura Hillenbrand's book nearly a decade ago. Several historic structures have been preserved, including the stallion barn where Seabiscuit was housed. There is amateur film footage of the artist Tex Wheeler, showing him at work on the original plaster sculpture of Seabiscuit that would be the first step in the process of making several bronzes cast from it. One of those statues is at the ranch.

The herd of white fallow deer are descendants of the original animals purchased in 1949 by Charles Howard from William Hearst, a friend who also had such deer at San Simeon. (R.M. Jurek, 1970, Humboldt State College)

2 comments:

Dina said...

Beautiful pictures. Seabiscuit lived a long life.

USelaine said...

Sadly, his owner died a few years later, and his children sold the ranch. The current owners are trying to preserve the natural and archeological landscape, as well as some of the Howard era structures.