And indeed this is what happened, in actual fact, to the 'underdog'-racing racing prospect, named Seabiscuit, when the horse was a colt. Like Malcolm X's parentage to two strong parents, Seabiscuit, the direct descendant great racehorse Man O'War, was born with great geological assets of speed and intelligence. But the horse was underestimated, and eventually used to train more promising racehorses by having jockeys pull up the animal, so that the animals being 'really' trained could gain confidence, however false.
Seabiscuit, like Malcolm was judged harshly for his appearance. In Seabiscuit's case, he was born a small animal in a sport that favored giants like the towering stallion War Admiral. Seabiscuit was knock-kneed and had what some observers called an 'eggbeater' gait, rather than a proper galloping stride. This was why Seabiscuit was put forth at a claiming race for a cheap purse, and the owner who was eventually to acquire him did so for only a few hundred dollars. In the true spirit of American capitalism, this initially small outlay was to recoup much in the way of profits and fame.
The men who trained and owned the little racehorse were similarly outcast when their paths crossed with Seabiscuit's path. Charles Howard, the owner, had lost his wife. Tom Smith, Seabiscuit's trainer was a very quite, almost mute man, with unconventional training tactics, and an inability to relate to the press. Red Pollard, Seabiscuit's jockey, was too tall to be competitive as a jockey in most races, and was blind in one eye. Yet, despite being lamed during his own career, Pollard had a strange rapport with the ugly, but plucky horse.
Seabiscuit was an athlete with many physical obstacles as well -- a tendency to put on weight, a love of sleep, as well as the fact he always looked like he was about to go lame. But through sheer heart, pluck, determination, and the fact that the strange trio of Pollard, Smith, and Howard seemed to understand...
Perhaps one reason Malcolm X's Islamic conversion story, of a coming back from the spiritually dead, did not have as much resonance during its day was that the early 1960's when Malcolm X had his greatest influence was a time of great optimism and faith in the American dream of possibility, which Malcolm was so critical of in his speeches.
Also, unlike the more uncomplicated rags to riches tale of Seabiscuit, Malcolm demanded change of his listeners who would become his followers; even through Malcolm's story was also an act of affirmation of faith in the self. Malcolm called upon his Black listeners to give up their lives of crime and of attaining white material success, and instead strive for the harsher and long-term gratification of community unity and spiritual rewards for their children and children's children. However, today, after his death, Malcolm X, like Seabiscuit during the horse's heyday of popularity, has become a symbol of promise. Particularly for young Black men, although for many others who have read Alex Haley's version of his Autobiography, or seen Spike Lee's cinematic incarnation of the tale, Malcolm X stands along with Seabiscuit as a triumph over societal limits. But neither of these individuals was truly an underdog, in the sense that both individuals showed early promise, promise that society attempted to stifle or refused to recognize. And they rose not simply though their own self-determination, but with the help and mentoring of others, in Malcolm's case, through the social institutions of Black Islam, and in Seabiscuit's case, in the hands of individuals who believed in the horse's potential glory.
