When was secretariat filmed

Benjamin as Mike Harding. Randall Wallace. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge.

Against all odds, Chenery -- with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin -- manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years. The Impossible True Story. Biography Drama Family History Sport. Rated PG for brief mild language. Did you know Edit.

Trivia In the Belmont Stakes, Secretariat 's winning margin 31 lengths and winning time still stand after 37 years. Goofs In the film the announcer for the Belmont Stakes mentions the margin of victory being 31 lengths which was true, but in real life announcer Chic Anderson announced it as 25 lengths because he was unable to correctly estimate the distance between the horses due to the incredible lead Secretariat had.

Quotes Penny Chenery : More than three thousand years ago a man named Job complained to God about all his troubles and the Bible tells us that God answered. Crazy credits Zappa Studios talent for extra work. User reviews Review. Top review. The film 'Secretariat' would have had to be awful for me not to Love it. I remember seeing the Belmont Stakes on TV in '73 and knowing I had seen a remarkable achievement by an equestrian or any athlete.

When Secretariat enters his first race at Aqueduct race track in Queens, New York City, everyone has high expectations. The jockey, Paul Feliciano, is very young with little experience, which worries Penny, but Lucien reassures her. During the race, Secretariat is repeatedly hit by other horses and comes in fourth.

Penny and Lucien fight, and Lucien blames Paul for the loss. Penny realizes the only way Secretariat will ever win is if he has an experienced jockey. Pennys flight back home is canceled on the day of the race, and she misses her daughter Kates solo in a play. Her son holds up the pay phone so Penny can hear Kate sing.

Penny gets experienced jockey Ron Turcotte to ride Secretariat to many victories. Secretariat is named horse of the year after a successful two-year-old season.

Pennys father suffers a stroke and dies, leaving Penny and her brother Hollis to inherit the estate. Although she needs six million dollars to pay estate taxes, Penny refuses to sell Secretariat. Instead she syndicates the horse, selling 32 shares worth more than six million dollars, as long as he can win a three-year-old distance race.

She tries to sell a share to Ogden Phipps, who instead offers to buy the horse for seven million dollars. Penny refuses to sell him. When Phipps demands to know why, she tells him Secretariats value will triple when he wins the Triple Crown — a feat no horse has accomplished in twenty-five years.

This whole movie feels authentic. Diane Lane, who is so good in so many kinds of roles, makes Penny a smart woman with great faith in her own judgment and the courage to bet the farm on it. Every hair in place, always smartly turned out, she labors in the trenches with Lucien and Eddie, negotiates unflinchingly with the Old Boys, eats the stomach-churning meals at the diners where the track crowd hangs out. She looked at the greatest racehorse in the world and knew she was right, when all about her were losing their heads and blaming it on her.

Of the actors, I especially enjoyed John Malkovich. He has a way of conveying his reasoning by shorthand and implication. He creates a portrait of horse trainer who's slow to tip his hand, which is correct. No role in Mike Rich's screenplay is overwritten, or tries to explain too much. Like " The Social Network ," another contender for year-end awards, it has supreme confidence in its story and faith that we will find it fascinating. This is one of the year's best films.

To my shame, I used to kid Bill that he wrote stuff like, "Big Red knew it was an important day," as if he could read Secretariat's mind. He wrote nothing of the sort. We would speculate about what a horse does know. Sebald once wrote, "Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension. But between Secretariat and his human family something was comprehended.

There's a scene here when Penny Chenery and her horse look each other in the eye for a long time on an important morning. You can't tell me they weren't both thinking the same thing. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Rated PG for brief mild language. Diane Lane as Penny. Nestor Serrano as Pancho.

Dylan Walsh as Jack Tweedy. He evoked the race day, what the race means to Kentuckians, and of course, to my family and me. He really set the mood.

And even though we were all shivering on a cold day, we threw ourselves into the drama of it. But he also knows there is more to the art of a movie than timing explosions and moving soldiers before a camera. I always make a point of speaking to the extras and treating them like actors — because of course, they are. I want them to know why we are making the movie. Wallace says the movie began with an original script by screenwriter Mike Rich, who brought the story to the story.

He had done something that was outside what anybody would expect. And that was what more connected me to him. I grew up in a romantic south, where we thought about things like courage and daring and gallantry.

It was that kind of spirit we all saw in Secretariat. But Penny and Diane, well Diane has this kind of elegant strength. Modestly said. So the choice of a beautiful actress to portray Penny Chenery would be entirely appropriate.

Her fans would demand it. One sports writer spoke for many when he called her the First Lady of the American Turf.