Customer Reviews

Ruffian

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ruffian is perhaps the greatest racehorse of all-time. I have all of her races and have watched them repeatedly. It never gets any easier to watch the Great Match Race and this dramatization doesn't soften the blow AT ALL. The last thirty minutes of this film are incredibly difficult to watch. Horseracing is as dark as it is beautiful and Ruffian was the darkest and most beautiful of all.

This DVD includes some excellent bonus features including nearly all of her races in their entirety (including the Match Race), an interview with Nack, a documentary featuring Jane Schwartz, Frank Whiteley, Jacinto Vasquez and others, a tribute comparing Ruffian and Barbaro etc. Worth every penny and more.

When I heard they were making a film about Ruffian, my first reaction was that I didn't want to see it and relive the emotions I felt back in 1975 while watching the match race on TV.





But by the time the movie debuted on ABC, I decided to watch it and I'm glad I did. Seeing the movie helped put it back in perspective and made me remember the glory of Ruffian and not just the tragic ending.





If you are too young to remember 1975 or weren't born yet, please watch the movie to see the cultural significance of the "He vs. She" match race. It was an indelible part of the 1970s decade, coming on the heels of the 1973 Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Fisher tennis match, and the rise of Women's Lib.





There are a lot of other things about that tumultuous decade that we'd like to forget (such as polyester!), but in horse racing, it was the best decade of all. Three smashing Triple Crown winners in Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed; the rise of jockey Steve Cauthen as a household name; women jockeys breaking down the doors of the men-only club; plus Ruffian and other horse racing greats such as Spectacular Bid, Forego, and Alydar.





There are always inaccuracies that plague horse racing movies, and the Ruffian movie is no exception. Workout scenes show Ruffian alone with no other horses on the racetrack. I worked as an exercise rider for 20 years at Thoroughbred racetracks, and believe me, horses don't train alone. There are hundreds of horses on the track galloping and breezing during training hours, which really changes the dynamic of the scene.





The horse they used as Ruffian on the racetrack was a fairly decent representation of the real Ruffian, but the horse they used for the barn scenes looked like a Quarter horse, and just stood there like a nag. I'm sure it was for practical reasons, they needed a quiet horse to put up with all the filming, but I wish the barn-scene horse was more true to Ruffian's looks and personality. Ruffian was an extremely high spirited horse, she kicked up a fuss on a regular basis, and part of her allure and fame was due to her high voltage personality.





Even though in reality Bill Nack's character wasn't there for Ruffian's every move, I don't have an objection to him constantly being in and around the Whiteley barn as Bill Nack helped explain and drive the story. If the story was told from Frank Whiteley's perspective alone, it would have been a near-silent movie as he was cranky and didn't say much in real life.





In the 30+ years since Ruffian died, she has stood the test of time as an all-time great. Sports Illustrated included Ruffian as the only non-human on their list of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century. The Blood Horse Magazine ranks her #35 in their top 100 racehorses of the century.





Real footage of Ruffian racing is shown at the end of the movie, it's a great addition as she truly was a dynamo. The inaccuracies I stated above don't detract that much from the real story, so I am giving it my top rating.

Be warned. The historical Ruffian is not to be found in this movieland fluffery put together by people who didn't do their homework, who made up what they could not be bothered to portray accurately.

Movies hardly ever get horse racing right. Seabiscuit was the closest approach I have seen, but even that movie had problems. Ruffian is loaded with problems.

WHY WHY WHY do movies with racing invariably confabulate odd little human subplots that anyone with any knowledge of the sport knows are pure hokum? I do KNOW the sport, having raised, handled, and raced my own horses, and having written about the sport professionally. The actual history of Ruffian was compelling enough without the make-believe elements of this movie.

The horses used to portray the title character were some of the coarsest, plainest beasts imaginable. Ruffian--the real one--was a tall, nearly 17 hand filly, quite leggy and graceful. With all the cast-off TBs available for purchase on a per-pound meat price basis, couldn't at least one been found for close shots that did not look like a chunky pony???

I am sure that many people in racing would have cheerfully advised the movie's makers on details, gratis, just to be sure things were not gotten laughably wrong. The notion that Claiborne Farm, in the 1970s, shipped horses in a rusty beige trailer with "CF" on the side is silly. Claiborne was and is one of the last remaining family, multi-generational outfits, and has been involved not just with foaling and raising good horses, but in shaping and influencing the breed globally. It is not a marginal operation without presence or reputation. Go to the farm, and note that the gates, the (very large) water tower, the trim on the main stallion barn--are all painted Cadmium Yellow, the farm colors. Rusty beige trailers? Pulled by aged pickup trucks? I think not.

This was a FICTIONAL movie appropriating the name of a real filly, and beyond that, not much more. It was never really explained why Ruffian was extraordinary--the movie makers seemed confused between stakes record time and track record time--or that she had an average winning margin of 7 lengths after 10 races, or that there has never been anything like her since, and in what seems a glaring omission, there was no hint of all the advances in caring for catastrophic breakdowns since 1975. Foolish Pleasure's reputation was inflated beyond what it was at the time--he was a good 3-y-o, but not a great one, and he finished his days in obscurity, pasture-breeding mares somewhere out west.

Watch this howler as maudlin fiction, but be warned that it is fiction, and has not much to do with the real Ruffian or the real sport.

No wonder Frank Whiteley and Jacinto Vasquez sought to legally block the airing of this movie without adequate disclaimers.

If I said this movie was even adequate, I'd be lying. If I also suggested any film could ever be adequate as tribute to what Ruffian deserves, I'd be fibbing, so keep in mind I'm not the most impartial reviewer here.

Despite the inevitably tragic ending we all knew would come, I looked forward to this Ruffian bio-pic for many months, was glad the story of this great athlete was going to be told in tribute to her, and even urged people I know to watch it. Ultimately after seeing the film Ruffian back in June I felt let down and regretted sticking my neck out to be its cheerleader. Perhaps on the big screen, with a larger budget, flaws in this film would have been corrected, the races would have seemed more glorious and been given central billing in the plot, and the visuals would have done justice to the real footage we have of Ruffian leaving competitors behind in her dust.

As it was, while I have to admit filmmakers did their best and no doubt struggled within limitations of time and finances, I felt I was seeing a human interest story in which Ruffian was a background player. How long was the cumulative onscreen run-time of all her races? Two or three minutes out of two hours? Plus there were just too many inaccuracies to look away and let them go unnoticed. I won't point them out here because I don't want to dampen anyone else's viewing experience and know there are others who do like this film about thoroughbred racing's fastest filly (maybe fastest horse ever) but bear in mind both Ruffian's real life trainer Frank Whiteley, and her jockey Jacinto Vasquez, sued to stop this production. Both are on record as criticizing their portrayals and the facts as offered in the ABC movie, and that should tell you something right there.

I also must get it off my chest that the various geldings (and it was annoyingly obvious in a few scenes that these were male horses playing a female) who portrayed Ruffian failed to embody her. Yes, their coloration was right, as were the stars on their foreheads, but not one of the equine actors was anything like Ruffian's seventeen hands, and none came remotely close to displaying her build, which has frequently been cited for thirty years as proportionately perfect, the ideal for thoroughbreds, the standard for which breeders should aim. Ruffian had inner fire and spirited energy, and those horses were calm and dull. Was what we saw onscreen honestly the best casting could have done?

As I said earlier, I know the cast, crew, and everyone else who had a hand in putting this version of Ruffian's story on the screen did their best, but sometimes a person's best isn't good enough, particularly when this many lazy flaws were allowed to slip in uncorrected. This should have been entitled "The Story of the People Around Ruffian" because that's sure how it felt. Maybe someday we'll see a film that truly tells of Ruffian's brilliance.

While it's not perfect, nor as lush as what could have been done from the Jane Schwartz Ruffian source material, this is an above-average TV movie. It's very well-acted, has beautiful cinematography, and well-drawn characters.

I was fifteen when the match race took place, and had been an avid horse book reader and loved watching the great thoroughbred horse races on TV. I didn't get to view the race, but heard the terrible news the next day. I actually knew very little about Ruffian, but was intrigued by the little I had heard, that she was incredibly fast, but also very high strung and wild, and that was what caused her to self-destruct when they tried to save her. I satisfied my curiosity in the last year by purchasing the movie. Not knowing the details of her life, I found the movie to be both engrossing and heartbreaking. I cried for the last half hour, as knowing the end of the story made it even more difficult to watch. Not long afterward, I bought Jane Schwartz's excellent book, Burning From The Start. She filled in many of the details the movie wasn't able to cover, and I found that I cared even more for this incredible filly who had won so many hearts in her short life. I recommend both the movie and the book. I get a lump in my throat at the end of the movie and in the special features when they show actual footage of her races and you see this magnificent creature running like the wind.

As these ESPN Original Entertainment productions have gone over the years, this is arguably the finest, though with several controversies, which the movies seemingly cannot run away from.

Originally airing June 9, 2007, on ABC, Sam Shepard does a commendable job portraying Ruffian's trainer, Frank Whiteley. With much of the focus on Ruffian's performances, the staged racing shots are good, especially with then Belmont Park race announcer Dave Johnson - portraying himself - recreating his work. But with the availability of most of the actual racing footage - used as part of a wealth of bonus features - would have been a major plus.

The story-telling element is strange, as it evolves into the relationship between Whiteley and reporter William Nack (played by Frank Whaley). Nack penned an ESPN Books-published recollection on Ruffian, which was not a movie tie-in, entitled, Ruffian: A Race Track Romance. At times the script bogs down in scenes where Nack - who works on special projects for ESPN - seemingly towers over the trainer and racer.

There is rightfully heavy emphasis on the July 6, 1975, "Battle of the Sexes" match-race between Ruffian and Kentucky Derby champion, Foolish Pleasure. With more than 50,000 fans jammed into Belmont Park and an estimated 18 million TV viewers, Ruffian suffered a hideous breakdown of her right foreleg and was euthanized one day later when she broke the cast and another leg after surgery, which lasted 12 hours.

The bonus features puts the real story in its true historic perspective. It includes an interview (surprise!) with Nack and an important conversation with Jane Schwartz, who wrote the definitive biography on Ruffian, the 1991 release, Ruffian: Burning From the Start.

The movie alone does not tell the complete the story. The DVD bonus features and books by Schwartz & Nack will give a more complete picture on a phenomenal filly who ultimately was a victim of human ego and media greed.

A wonderful story. Although it was sad to see I was glad the footage was included of the actual race. A magnificent animal giving all she had doing what she loved. I was also pleased to learn that they have changed the way an injured animal is taken care of since Ruffian's pain and suffering. The movie was very informative and I would recommend it for anyone who appreciated and loves horses.

4 1/2 stars

It is a great movie, wonderful acting, wonderful story, etc. I highly recommend it to any horse people...scratch that. I highly recommend it to ANYONE, horsey or not.

If you watch this you should know that in the match race at Belmont they have a grueling scene where Ruffian is running and then they zoom onto her legs and her front leg LITERALLY SNAPS in half. Younger children should not watch this scene. It is very sad. Also later on in the movie Ruffian shatters her other leg (though they don't show it) and it is heartbreaking.

*(Ruffian does end up needing to be put down at the end.)*

WARNING: This is not like the Secretariat story. (Which i recommend as well!)
It doesn't leave you with a warm, feel-good feeling at the end.

However, I, loving ALL that has to do with horses and horse racing, wanted to know Ruffian's story. I'm glad I watched this movie.

Those of us who love horse racing and saw this horse run, know how special she was!!
Truly one of the greatest ever. Glad they did this film to acknowledge this great horse.
Not the story "Seabiscuit" was (but what is!) After watching seabiscuit, I thought they ought to make a film of Ruffian but wasn't sure what story there was besides winning and winning and then the sad ending. But the film is well worth seeing and the storyline is very good and down to earth. Still remember watching the race with my father. Acually thought the colt would beat her--but when the race started-I knew I was wrong. The dvd even shows Ruffian's races. Great footage. She never beat a colt but I don't think there were many at that time that could have beat her! After watching this film, I thought, why not make a film of Secratariat. and now i understand they are! Watch and enjoy, shows the best and worst of horse racing.
dec