$250,000 is the price hoped for.

RED LODGE (AP) -- A Red Lodge couple hopes to sweeten their retirement by auctioning a memento that just might have powerful appeal to other horse lovers.

It's the saddle that jockey Red Pollard rode to a win on the Thoroughbred race horse Seabiscuit in the 1930s. A similar saddle sold for $150,000 at a recent auction of Seabiscuit memorabilia in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Bob McTaggart and Jaqui Their-McTaggart hope for $250,000.

Seabiscuit's enormous fame of the time has been revived by Laura Hildenbrand's best-selling book in 2001 and a current hit movie starring Tobey Maguire.

The McTaggarts fell heir to the lightweight saddle through Bob's father, Archie McTaggart, one-time Butte mayor and a racing fan who died in 1975.

"He took Red under his wing before he was a well-known jockey," Bob said. "After Red and Seabicuit won the big Santa Anita Handicap race, Red reached his goal and retired."

As a thank-you to his friend, mentor and spiritual father, Pollard sent Archie McTaggart the saddle and victory picture. On the picture, Red wrote, "Arch, I done it and I'm glad. Red Pollard." He also signed the saddle and dated it 1934.

"I remember seeing both the saddle and the picture in our home," said Bob, only a year old when the race took place.

Jaqui began researching the saddle, authenticating it and corresponding with people via the Internet to see what the saddle might be worth. The McTaggarts have contacted Sotheby's auction house.

Bob McTaggart figures Pollard was probably a teenager when he met Archie McTaggart in the early to mid-1920s.

"The story goes that Arch staked Red from time to time during his Butte years," Bob said.

"That was before ATM machines, credit cards and pawn shops, and when a guy needed a little cash, he went to a more affluent mentor or friend. That man was my father."

Bob speculates that Red approached Archie for work in Butte in about 1925 and believes Archie pulled some strings.

"He was Canadian, a minor and destitute and in danger of being sent back to Canada," Bob said. "We believe that's one way my father helped him out. Red used to joke that my dad 'smuggled him into the country', but that isn't true."