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DIANE LANE portrays  Penny Chenery Tweedy , the owner who believes in Secretariat in the Disney  film.

By Maggie Scott

Secretariat, the story of the most magnificent piece of horse flesh to ever tear up a racetrack in the last century, gets the Disney treatment; which nearly turns the dashing stallion into a plodding gelding.  Short on the details of what made the colt out of Bold Ruler such a phenomenon and long on the eccentricities and intricacies of its human characters, the film directed by Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers) is in the studio’s classic family-friendly mold of can-do.

Other than its leading man—or, rather, men; as there were five horses used to portray Secretariat during the filming—there is another key character who gives the horse a run for its money. When it comes to rooting for a winner that’s  Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane), the daughter of the incapacitated owner of a Virginia thoroughbred racehorse farm.  One of its two pregnant mares holds the key to the farm’s survival.

Penny has checked the blood lines, and believes the foal by Bold Ruler is going to have championship speed. But, first, she’s got to take control of the farm. Then she must  replace the corrupt trainer and, eventually fight to convince her practical husband and skeptical brother (that the big red colt who stood on his hooves at birth faster than any other the groom Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) had ever seen, has the stuff to take the Triple Crown.

Penny sees in “Big Red” an almost supernatural majesty; a horse that, in the words of the Book of Job, “eats up the ground” when he runs.  In less adoring terms, Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), Penny’s flamboyant new trainer, sees an animal that’s “lazy, sleeps too much, is slow out of the gate and takes forever to find his stride.”  Lucien checked the blood lines, too, when he changed his mind about “losing interest in racing” and being around animals he thinks are as dumb as their owners.  He tosses his “retirement” golf clubs in the trash, because Penny stands up to his attitude and shows him she can give as good as she got from the condescending, male-dominated racing establishment.

Together with Eddie’s ability to “feel a horse’s thoughts through his hands,” Lucien’s gruff skills mold Secretariat (named by Penny’s beloved assistant, Miss Ham [Margo Martindale]) into a two-year-old ready to leave the other horses in his dust.  Only, it doesn’t quite work out that way, when Secretariat gets “mugged” in the fourth race at Aqueduct in July of 1972, and comes in third.

Lucien and Penney take it in stride and watch as Secretariat begins a winning streak that piles up trophies at Meadow Farm and bestows the Horse of the Year award on the equine who prances and preens for every camera that points his way. Before he and Penny can get too cocky, Lucien warns them both that, astonishing as the horse’s accomplishments have been, “next year’s races are longer, with faster horses.”

With the Kentucky Derby in her sights, Penny’s dreams almost pull up lame when her father passes, leaving a crushing debt of six million dollars of inheritance tax owed the IRS.  Even for those who remember the superhorse and his spectacular races, there is still a sense of spine-tingling suspense watching Secretariat go from dead last to the winner’s circle.

Peripheral plot points, like Penny missing some of her charming kids’ school events and her husband missing his wife being home to put supper on their Denver home’s dining table, come across like after thoughts.  Even with stiff competition from Malkovich’s strident wardrobe and from her equine co-stars’ muscular beauty, the odds are always in Lane’s favor that she’ll take the acting bit in her teeth and ride her role first across the box office finishing line.  Rated PG for mild language.

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