Hungarian Seabiscuit

Talk about ripped from the headlines! On the front page of yesterday's New York Times is an article right out the pages of my thesis!!! It appears that the country of Hungary has latched onto a thoroughbred named Overdose with a fervor reminiscent of Seabiscuit!

Overdose was purchased for "a pittance" and currently boasts an undefeated record in 12 starts!! Like Seabiscuit, he is described as "short" and "kind of ugly" and was overlooked at the sales in Newmarket. At the moment he is nothing short of a national "hero" and appears to have inspired and re-invigorated Hungarians who have been facing some tough times lately.

"This horse has a mission here in Hungary," said Zoltan Mikoczy, the horse's owner. "I can compare Overdose to Seabiscuit," said Zalan Horvath, the secretary of the Association for the Future of Equestrian Sports in Hungary. "I say that because the Hungarian nation has had a lot of bad times, in the last centuries but also lately."

It seems that the "little horse that could" has re-inspired Hungarians to believe in themselves and generated an aura of national pride. Even his one blemish, an apparent victory in a sprint at Longchamp in Paris that was nullified because of a starting gate malfunction that affected another horse, has been compared to the signing of the treaty of Trianon that narrowed the Hungarian borders to what they are today. "Again the tough luck, again in France," said Trivadar Farkashazy, Overdose's biographer.

What is it about a racehorse that makes it capable of generating such nationalist sentiments? A combination of strength, beauty, innocence and determination, personified by a racehorse that wins, has the ability, time and time again, to inspire humans to think beyond themselves. It is of course, the Barbaro phenomenon, except Barbaro generated it when he raced as well as when he tried to recover from surgery, and it gets a little tricky because it is also a marker of where we are in our relationship with these animals.

Leave it to animals, however, notably racehorses to remind us that anything is possible. "Failure is the most often heard expression in Hungary today--failure, mistake, pessimism," siad Viktor Orban, chairman of the Fideszz Party and a former Prime Minister. "When even a horse is able to make a miracle from nowhere, it's a sign of hope that we can get out from the desperate situation we are now in."