Through a local resident we met at church one Sunday, we were given the opportunity to tour the home of Seabiscuit – one of the most legendary racing horses that ever lived.

When We Visited: August 2014

Ages of Kids: 8, 6, 4

Tips: They only do tours on specific weekends, so make sure to check the schedule before you arrive! We also stayed at the Golden Rule RV Park which is on the same property. Fantastic location, quiet, and the kids loved the swimming pool!

We almost didn’t call her. A week previous during an after church “Linger Longer” lunch with the local congregation, we met Roni McFadden. She is an amazingly friendly woman with whom we instantly felt at ease with and enjoyed talking to. She mentioned she had written a book about horses, and that if we stayed at the RV park on the property, she could probably get us a tour of Redwood Ranch and help us learn about Seabiscuit. Having seen the Kentucky Derby Museum and Churchill Downs last year (Secretariat’s stomping grounds) we were pretty interested.

But then we got tired. Did we really want to stay in the area an extra day? It was time to move on.  We didn’t really want to bother her. After going back and forth during the week we spent at Camp Noyo we had the magical “why not?” moment. We didn’t have anywhere to be. Nothing tying us to a particular location or schedule. We wanted to be pretty loose with our travel plans for this exact reason: if something interesting came up we’d be able to jump on it.

So we called her. And she was amazing! Roni met us on the property one afternoon and was  wealth of knowledge and information about the grounds, Seabiscuit’s career, and the current operations of the ranch. It was fantastic! The kids, perhaps, were ready to go long before Sam and I were, but we had the “this one is for mommy and daddy” talk and they were extremely patient.

Seabiscuit’s life sized statue. He was not a very large horse!

The restored truck used to take Seabiscuit to local events.

Inside the main dining and church area there is a collection of old newspaper clippings, artist renderings, and even the original silks worn by Red Pollard!

Cara has a stuffed horse named Secretariat (she acquired said animal soon after our Kentucky visit) and she wanted to bring him along to meet his counterpart.

Afterward, Rori gave us a copy of her book, Josephine – A Tale of Hope and Happy Endings. The book is about Seabiscuit’s first descendant to be born back on the ranch and her journey through sorrow and finally to happiness. It is a beautifully illustrated children’s  book and all proceeds go directly to therapeutic riding program hosted at Redwood Ranch. She also has a book about her own life called “The Longest Trail” about her teenage years at a pack station in the High Sierra’s. Sam and I are both reading and enjoying that one a lot!

We are so grateful to have met Roni and tour this beautiful property! If you don’t know much about Seabiscuit (or horse racing) we highly recommend looking into it. Later that evening we watched the 2003  movie (and yes, we did fast forward and skip through parts for our kids. It’s rated PG-13). Also on my to-do list is to read the book by Laura Hillenbrand the movie was based on!