Hast thou given the horse his strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Was Secretariat a freak of nature or an animal nurtured to grow to his full potential? I pondered the question and came to the conclusion that every once in a while there comes a specimen so pure in his purpose that he literally outruns everyone around him.
Secretariat is a movie about just such a magnificent creature. While the movie focuses primarily on the horse, as it should, the stories of the people are a huge part of the story.
Secretariat is a horse that dramatically affected the people around him. The story opens with the death of the Chenery family matriarch. Everyone comes home for the services and to figure out what to do next with the family’s horse farm which hasn’t turned a profit in a while. Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) is married to a Denver attorney and is “Suzy Homemaker.” Her brother, the professor, wants nothing to do with the farm but Penny can’t quite pull the plug on their ailing father’s dream.
Penny decides to stay for a little while to figure out what to do. While she is still going back and forth from Virginia to Colorado she finds that she has a passion for the new foal born shortly after her mother’s death. Penny fires the trainer who has been scamming the family during her father’s illness and hires Lucien Lauren (John Malkovich). Lucien had retired but after some coaxing takes on the young horse. Penny sees in Lucien a man who is good but more importantly, desperately needs a “win” in his life. It’s amazing how someone who carries a pocketful of newspaper clippings of his failures reacts when given one more big chance!
Named Secretariat by the farm’s secretary, because a big race was coming up; he needed an official name and no one could decide what to name him. Everyone still called him Big Red, even his fans. There’s lots of speculation about him being a short distance runner only, but “Big Red” proved them all wrong. He went on to win the Triple Crown! The last of the three races, the Belmont Stakes was the longest and the hardest of the races, yet he won it by 31 lengths; a record that has not been matched in the 37 years since.
So, I wondered about Secretariat as I’ve wondered about a few others, like Lance Armstrong. Does God, once in a while create a Job or a Lance or a Big Red, or does it come from being placed in a situation where we are given the tools, the nurturing and the grit to excel?
Secretariat is a wonderful, well cast, family movie. After doing some research I learned that there was some literary license taken with the story but the result was the same—Big Red was gifted with guts, heart, determination and as we all eventually experienced, endurance.
As always feel free to give me your thoughts and opinions at chastings@rockcliff.com
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