Secretariat

Secretariat tells the story of Penny Chenery, a wife and mother who steps in to run her family's horse farm in Virginia when her father's health declines. Though she knows little about racing, she takes on a business dominated by men, and with the guidance of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin she brings a chestnut colt named Secretariat to the racetrack. In 1973 the horse achieves what no other had managed in a quarter of a century, sweeping the three races that make up the American Triple Crown.

Randall Wallace directed the film, which followed The Man in the Iron Mask and We Were Soldiers in his filmography and preceded Heaven Is for Real. Mike Rich wrote the screenplay, and Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray produced it for Walt Disney Pictures. Diane Lane plays Chenery, with John Malkovich as Laurin, Scott Glenn as her father Chris Chenery, and supporting turns from Dylan Walsh, Fred Thompson and Margo Martindale.

Made for a budget of thirty-five million dollars, the film took about sixty million worldwide, a modest return. Audiences received it warmly enough, with a rating of 7.2 on IMDb from roughly thirty-two thousand votes and 7.4 on TMDB, while critics were cooler at 6.1 from 156 reviews, so viewers have tended to be more favourable than reviewers.