Secretariat — Ahead of the Pack.

Last week, I saw that the novelization of Disney’s Secretariat movie was out, over at WallyWorld. I promptly bought it, and then found out it was actually a reprint of a bona fide exhaustive study of Secretariat’s ancestry and career from back in the early seventies. I devoured several chapters, and then realized that I really really needed to give it to my mother. (Because I really really messed up on remembering her birthday a few weeks back.) So I dutifully handed it over. She was surprised both by the gift, and by the news that a Secretariat movie was coming out at all. (Movie marketing tends to forget that not everybody is on the Internet.)

Well, of course my mother promptly found out about the sneak preview showing at the theater near her and got tickets. So that’s where my mom and dad and I were tonight, which goes to show that you should always give goodies to your mother!

There’s one important thing you should always know, when attending a horse movie. So I am happy to assure you that NO HORSES DIE IN THIS MOVIE. Yes, this is a horse movie tendency. But history actually gives us a happy ending, so be happy with it. If you have any horse-loving tendencies, you will probably get all weepy during this flick the way people get weepy at weddings. Some sad things happen to the people, but it comes out all right in the end.

I really enjoyed this movie, and it was exactly what I needed. It had heart, humor, drama, factual interest, and it even let me travel back in time to the Seventies for a bit (without too much of the bad stuff). Family was very important, and they played with that theme in various interesting ways. There was a surprisingly topical theme of maintaining American unity despite deep political disagreements (though it wasn’t shoved down anybody’s throat either way). It was maybe not a great movie for all time, but it was solidly enjoyable and interesting. It also came out and said some good things about horse thinking, which a lot of horse movies are too sappy to remember.

There were some things that could have been done better (some of the drama was a bit facile, and they never made the groom a real character, which always always happens to grooms!). There were some violations of fact (Secretariat wasn’t born with that audience) and of basic horse principles (you never burn anything inside a barn; and the birthing scene is the least messy horse birthing in film history). But on the whole, the movie was amazingly good.

And whoever did the costuming and set design, they were real geniuses, working the setting with authenticity while serving the story and characters superbly. A lot of times, movie technical stuff makes you wince, waiting to see what horrible thing will strike next. This was the opposite. Everything was done wonderfully in every detail. Whatever they spent on this, it wasn’t money down a rathole.

And the races. Oh, man. Even granted that they were doing a real story that makes The Black Stallion look conservative and realistic, they managed to shoot the races in a way that made me hold my breath and urge the horses on, even though I knew perfectly well what the results were going to be. There was none of this “shoot the action in crazy angles that prevent you from seeing what’s going on”. But it had more than that.

Secretariat had the best-shot race scenes in any horse movie I’ve ever seen, fiction or non-fiction. Probably the best race scenes of any kind that I’ve ever seen. (I could have done without the gratuitous musical add-in at one point, but that’s a quibble. I don’t think anybody’s going to notice it.)

Another interesting bit is that religion actually appears in this movie. It’s not really dug into, but the producers aren’t afraid to introduce it at funerals or times of trouble in various ways. But the use of a certain quote from Job is awesomely appropriate. (Non-horse fans won’t recognize the counterpoint being played against the Kentucky Horse Park’s famous use of the “fly without wings” quote from the Koran in their horse documentary, but it really really was a nice reference without being outright theft.)

I strongly recommend Secretariat for humans of all ages. I recommend the “novelization” also, because it is both moving and deep nonfiction, and is full of good information on horse racing and Thoroughbred history.

UPDATE: One more thing. There are various adversarial characters in this story whom you might think are being set up as villains. By the end of the movie, you’ll see that they’re really classic examples of “hardboots”, tough old horsemen or businesspeople. They got where they are by being canny and aggressive, and that’s how they continue to act. The way to get their respect is to do something worthy of respect. Those who can’t keep up with them don’t have what it takes to stay in business. The main character expects that attitude from her fellow owners; she is just surprised to see it show up in family members. (And so are they, I think.) So there’s an interesting problem set up — how do you prove yourself and your judgment? What are the victory conditions?