(2010) You can't find out what you're capable of achieving unless you make the run. In telling the story of the greatest thoroughbred racehorse ever, there is a fundamental obstacle of generating enough suspense, for those who already know, as to what will happen when we're cognizant of the historical conclusion. Of course, for anyone unaware, especially young viewers, the excitement will be in the running and the winning against the odds.

For this biopic of Penny Tweedy nee Chenery (Diane Lane) and her cinnamon steed, director Randall Wallace and screenwriter Mike Rich, drawing upon Secretariat: The Making of a Champion by William Nack (who's portrayed by Kevin Connolly as a young reporter covering the races) for the Disney movie, personal dramas - stand up and live the way you believe - leading up to the Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont races of 1973, substitute for the denouement of the competition.

Following word of her mother's death, Penny and her husband Jack Tweedy (Dylan Walsh) with their children leave their home in Denver for The Meadows in Virginia; her father Christopher Chenery (Scott Glenn), already ailing with dementia, can no longer handle a horse-breeding farm in nearly as poor health as he. After the funeral, with everyone expecting the farm and horses to be sold, Penny stays on long enough to fire the trainer Earl Jansen for dishonesty and accept the advice of her father's friend and fellow breeder Bull Hancock (Fred Dalton Thompson) of offering the job to recently retired Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), who feigns disinterest ("To get a top trainer you need a top horse") and prefers the gaudy attire of Superfly.

She attempts to split her responsibilities between being a homemaker and mother of four (including a teenage daughter involved with anti-war protesting) with that of becoming a horse breeder. With two mares pregnant from Bold Ruler - "Great colts come from great sires" - and a financial arrangement her father made with wealthy owner/breeder Ogden Phipps (James Cromwell), Penny must accept the result of a coin toss as to which of the two foals will belong to her.

While Ogden wins the call, choosing Hasty Matilda over Somethingroyal, Penny says: "But I got what I wanted." From birth - the foal's standing up fast - the horse makes a huge impression ("This colt is part of our family now"), though stable hand Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) observes that so far he's "all sleep and eat." Miss Hamm (Margo Martindale), who helps with caring for Mr Chenery and looks after Penny, suggests naming "Big Red" Secretariat.

Coming in third in his first contest, the two-year-old needs a more experienced jockey; Lucien recommends hiring Ronnie Turcotte (Otto Thorwarth), though he has a reputation of aggressiveness - his last mount's heart burst on the track. When Lucien behaves patronizingly toward Penny, she puts him on notice: "I'm new to this, and you know a lot more about it than I do. But don't ever say this is none of my business. Every bit of this is my business."

Coming from behind at Saratoga in July 1972, Secretariat wins by two lengths; seven wins in four months, making the others take dictation in the dust, he's named horse of the year. After her father suffers a stroke and dies, Penny discovers from her brother Hollis (Dylan Baker) that inheritance taxes will total $6 million; Secretariat is worth at least $7 million.

Siding with Hollis, her lawyer spouse tells Penny: "If we were to lose just one of the Triple Crown races, that value would drop to three million with no way to recover it." Even though no horse had won all three races in a quarter of a century, Penny's adamant: "His legacy to me isn't money. It's the will to win, if you can, and live with it if you can't." Hollis threatens to challenge her in court, because if she should stumble and fall, they could lose the farm, the horse, everything, making them worse than fools, beggars.

Thus, like Secretariat - who finishes only third at Memorial Wood weeks before the Derby, suggesting he's "all speed and no distance" like Bold Ruler - Penny must come from behind to win. Heartwarming family-friendly fare, but without the performances by Malkovich and the horse, this would be Hallmarkish.

(By the way, in over 130 years of the running of the three premier races, the Triple Crown has been achieved only eleven times, the last in 1978 by Affirmed; fifty times a horse has won two-out-of three.)

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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