Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit
An American Legend

Chapter 5
A boot on one foot, and a toe tag on the other.
By: Laura Hillenbrand
Summary by: zuleyma palomera
November 21,2011
English ii
4th pd.
Ms. lopezIn 1938, in Columbus Ohio, there was a teenager, Thomas Dowell, an obscure local jockey who wondered at a bus station. An officer saw the teenager’s profound distress, so he took him to the policestation. After asking him so many questions Thomas only remain mute. The doctor tried to called his mother, while the police was gone. Thomas sit by himself alone inside the doctor office, he slowlyslipped his belt off, tying it around his neck and hanged himself. He had committed suicide.
The jockeys those days lived an awful life. Thomas Dowell, for almost three years had tortured himselfstarving to death to keep a low weight and that had might be the reason Dowell had come undone. Eighty-three to 130 pounds was the maximum weight horses were assigned to carry in races. The lighter ajockey was the greater the number of horses he could ride.
Red pollard, a young horse rider, went almost a year eating nothing but eggs. Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons had confessed that during his ridingyears he would only eat one or two lettuce leafs as dinner. Fitzsimmons avoided areas of the barn where horses were being washed because of water. For him, water was agonizing. But the weight maximumswere to low that not even fasting and water deprivation was enough!
Many jockeys were poking their fingers down their thoughts to vomit everything they’ve been eating. Another thing that works forthe jockeys was not to wear heavy underwear while they are riding. Diarrhea became the constant companion of many jockeys, and for the ones who were really desperate there was only one last resort.Contact the right people and they could get hold of a special pill. That pill guaranteed to remove all the weight they wanted. In it there was an egg of a tapeworm. That pill was basically does is to...