Secretariat (2010) on Netflix
In 1969, housewife Penny Chenery returns home after her mother's death and takes over her ailing father's Meadow Stables. With no horse-racing knowledge, she asks trainer Lucien Laurin for help.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.2/1033,045 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
After her mother dies in 1969, Denver housewife Penny Chenery returns to her childhood home, where her father's secretary, Mrs. Ham, still works and her elderly father needs comforting. At the funeral she meets Arthur "Bull" Hancock and his son Seth of Claiborne Farm, who offer to help with the family's Meadow Stables. Her brother Hollis reveals that the trainer had arranged a sale their mother stopped, so Penny dismisses him and asks Bull for a replacement. Bull names Lucien Laurin, an aging French Canadian who at first refuses. Penny's father had made a deal with owner Ogden Phipps: Phipps's stallion Bold Ruler would be bred to two Chenery mares, and a coin flip would decide who chose first. Phipps picks Hasty Matelda's foal, leaving Penny with Somethingroyal's, Secretariat.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Secretariat (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Bill Christine, a former long-time racing writer for the Los Angeles Times, pointed out that the film makes no mention of Riva Ridge, a Chenery-owned horse that had won the 1972 Kentucky Derby and Belmont; but for Riva Ridge's career, Chenery might not have even owned Secretariat by the time he turned three.
- The film leads viewers to believe that Sham won the Wood Memorial, a major prep race then held two weeks before the Derby. In reality that race was won by Angle Light, and Chenery's most significant conflict in the run-up to the Derby was not with Phipps but with Edwin Whittaker, Angle Light's owner.
- Several horses were used to depict Secretariat in the film, chief among them Trolley Boy, whose great-great-grandsire was the real-life Secretariat, and Longshot Max, whose bloodline includes Secretariat's sire, Bold Ruler, as well as his grandsire, Princequillo.
- Bill Nack, the author of the book the film is based on, pointed out that Pancho Martin's verbal attack on Laurin before the Kentucky Derby was not intended to make Martin look evil: the film lifted the diatribes from Nack's book, where they were a transcription of Martin's actual recorded words.
- In its second weekend the film held extremely well, sliding only 27% to $9.3 million for a $3,032 average from 3,072 theaters, then held up even better in its third weekend, slipping only 25% to just over $7 million.
