Ruffian (2007)

Horse racing is part of my life! As a huge race fan and handicapper I was so glad that ESPN funded this movie! Ruffian was the greatest filly ever to step on to a race track, bar none! This film did portray how good she was and did tell the true story of this race horse. Thought the cast was good and I liked the fact the movie was about the horse and the horses relationship with its connections. NOT! Like Secretariat! Which was a good movie, but! Secretariat was more about Penny Chenery-Tweety then it was this generations greatest race horse (male horse that is). If you actually looked at Ruffian's past performance sheet is all 1's ! Always in the lead and never gave it up.. The only time you see a 2 the tragic match race that killed her. Ruffian did not have good family lines when it came to being perfectly sound.. her Dam (Shenanigans) had bone issues in her front two legs and unfortunately that passes down..One thing they did not (or at least I didn't see) was a HUGE omission from the pubic as to why she broke down. If you look at the actual race footage there was a seagull on the track and as the two horses raced closer to the stupid bird the bird flew away. The footage reviled that Ruffian actually was looking at the bird as she races and had one bad step and it as over. Many Many people believe that if the at stupid bird was not there Ruffian would have won the race against Foolish Pleasure and may have had a massive career in front of her.. Will never know! Good movie. Heartbreaking. And one of my favourite scenes was right at the end when you see Frank Whitley look at the new 2 year olds being taken out of the carts. You see that look on his face that he knew he had one in a million horse a year earlier in Ruffian and there will never be one like her again. This is very true in horse racing!! Its like winning the lottery.. One in a million chance that you get a horse that can defy belief .. Thats whats so great about the sport! 30,000 foals are born each year. 20 make it to the Kentucky Derby at 3 years old and only one out of those 30,000 will go down in history.

I realize the horse who played Ruffian probably doesn't look like her and that Claiborne Farms is a very upscale operation. To me, however, the story is about heart, both in humans and horses, and how that binds them together and makes them great. In my opinion, Sam Shepard did a great job as Frank Whitely. I don't know enough about horse racing to pick out all the little factual flaws but to me this is a really inspiring story. The scenes are beautiful. It also captures the feel of the 1970s, at least as I remember them. The scenes where Ruffian broke down are really tragic, and it was also sad to see her in the hospital trying to recover. I liked the supporting cast quite a lot, too. To the limited extent I've been around horses, they seemed like horse people and the kind of folks who really love horses. I would recommend this movie to anyone.

Overall this is a good film about a great horse, Ruffian. It presented a time capsule of the racing world in 1974-75. One theme was that racing needed a great horse to draw crowds and the tracks (the New York tracks particularly) were empty due to lack of interest. This isn't entirely true. Secretariat raced in 1972-73 and he was in the first running of the Marlboro Cup which attracted champion horses. And the Marlboro Cup which was a pre Breeders Cup race attracted huge crowds. The film implies that Ruffian got more people to the empty track. Not entirely true--she most likely attracted new fans but the fans packed the stands for the Big races like the Belmont Stakes and Marlboro Cup. Also, Foolish Pleasure is raised to War Admiral like quality in the run through to the match race. However, Foolish Pleasure was not THE standout three year old colt of 1975--it was actually Wajima who became Champion three year old colt of that year. Foolish Pleasure was a nice racehorse but nowhere near this superhorse the movie implied he was.Also, there was a painfully long sequence of the run on the backstretch where Ruffian broke down (run in slow motion showing the leg actually snapping in close up). I think perhaps just running the actual race would have been shown to better effect.Sam Shepard did an excellent job as Ruffian's trainer Frank Whitely. The actors playing the owners were given rather unsympathetic parts particularly when they pushed for the match race. The film also had an interesting angle of the viewpoint of the Newsday reporter who followed the career of the great filly.The sequences of the real Ruffian in the closing credits were refreshing to watch. More scenes of her races (not the simulated ones) would have been welcome.

As an avid fan of Thoroughbred horse racing, and someone who followed Ruffian's career including witnessing her final race, I was pleasantly surprised by this made-for-TV film. Earlier in the day, the ABC network broadcast the Belmont Stakes in which viewers saw the unique character befitting many of the long-time sportswriters who cover Thoroughbred racing. Unfortunately for the film, Frank Whaley failed to deliver that persona in the key role of sportswriter Bill Nack. However, Sam Shepard in the starring role of trainer Frank Whiteley gave a most believable performance, capturing the real life trainer's restrained professionalism. While the film's setup for the Sorority Stakes was good, I would like to have seen more background as a lead into each of the races depicted. The writers capably demonstrated how the horse, even against the wishes of its trainer, was secondary to "filling the stands" for the moguls of the racing industry. To his credit, French-Canadian director Yves Simoneau did not overly dramatize the horse's final moments, instead, effectively borrowing the eye/lash closeup created by Krzysztof Kieslowski in his French-language film, "Trois couleurs: Bleu"