Ruffian - The Movie
 

Airs today @ 7 p.m. EST on ESPN2. I think it was originally going to be aired June 9.

Set your TiVo's

I'm guessing the ending will be very sad :(

No....that's a half an hour show they are most likely using as a tease for the movie on ABC.

oops sorry.

thanks - yeah, now i see its only 1/2 hour. but from what i've heard of the movie, maybe the movie is better off only being 1/2 hour.

from tvguide: On the Set: `Ruffian'

Did Sam Shepard actually just fantasize that she set or equalled track records every time she ran?

Sounds liike a movie that should be on Lifetime. Maybe they can make a mope fest double header with "The Life and Times of Barbaro"

A half hour should be enough to show what is important.....her first 10 races. We don't need to see the 11th.

i agree.
i'd imagine anyone watching would already know the outcome....i'd show leading up to the match, and that would be the end of the movie. but then, i don't go for that tear-jerker stuff anyway. of course, i don't care for horror movies either. neither one is my idea of entertainment.

I think this movie will be horrible for the industry and only serve to stir up the PETA people and similar groups. Those responsible for this better hope everyone comes home safely in the Belmont.

God forbid that they ever make a positive movie, like a movie about Cigar or Secretariat . . .

i have been thinking about this ruffian movie a lot. i wasn't born when she was racing and love to watch video's of her race. for horse racing fans, i would say everyone knows what happened in her last race. but i think if we want to draw more people in to horse racing, this isn't a story to show. i feel that with all the hits horse racing has been taking with injuries.. it will just turn more people off.. people who experienced the race when it happened will once again remember the feelings they felt... my mom was turned off from racing for a long time... i work in the media and i can't see a significant reason to air this movie.. especially one that ends so horribly.

most people that watch horse racing occasionally don't remember that who won the race at all.. they just remember the one who was fatally injured..

i second that notion they make movies about secretariart.. man o'war.. cigar.. people that don't even know a thing about racing at least know one these three...

you could say how he was trying to make history by topping citation's mark of 16 in a row.. he was the first horse to win the dubai world cup.. and he wasn't a really good horse until he was 5 years old.. and he was the greatest runner for a man.. that made himself into a millionaire.. when you look at it.. it kinda looks like seabiscuit.. minus the 16 in a row.. and the money he made.

I watched the preview thing and I was a little shocked. . . There was a whole segment on how they used technology to make it look like the horse in the movie's leg really breaks in half. . . I can't believe how graphic they made that scene and think it was in very poor taste. . .

They should make a movie about Mariah's Storm!

She debuted at little Ak Sar Ben racetrack in a 7K msw race, won by 13 lengths in hand throughout...won a Grade 2 in just career start #3...

Than she goes to Keeneland for the Alcibiades in her next start and BREAKS HER LEG.

All the bad things that can happen....all the drama

But she makes it!

And returns a year later to win her comeback race with a 103 Beyer. Follows that one up with a 14 length stake win at Arlington Park, with a 109 Beyer in hand throughout. (Midas Eyes dam 2nd) she wins three more dirt races after that--and brings a streak of five straight wins on dirt since the fractured leg into a showdown with superstar Serena's Song.

It's no contest.....the Donnie Von Hemel trainee, under jockey RN Lester, blows Serena's Song off the racetrack...winning by 5 1/2 lengths and running a 120 Beyer figure (I believe jointly the highest Beyer ever published for a filly or mare)

We can conveniently leave out the fact that she (and several other real superstar fillies) got her teeth kicked in over a sloppy track by Inside Information in the Breeders Cup Distaff.

Mariah's Storm goes off to the breeding shed....her first foal turns out "the iron horse" Giant's Causeway. Sounds like a decent movie to me!

As I'm sure many of you know....they already did a movie based (tremendously loosely) on the career of Mariah's Storm....they called it Dreamer...and everyone I know who's ever saw it hated it.

Nack's Secretariat book has been optioned to make a movie and it's my understanding they are moving forward with it.

If they ever make a movie about Cigar....the main focus of it should be about incompetent horse trainers.

Cigar actually won 17 races in a row on dirt....though his famed "streak" of wins was just 16.

He broke his maiden as a 3-year-old at Hollywood Park the same weekend as the 1993 Preakness....and his Beyer for winning that MSW race was almost equal to that of Prarie Bayou for his Preakness victory.

Yet...though the magic of really dumb trainers....Cigar spent the next year and a half losing turf race after turf race.

I believe Alex Hassinger had him when he broke his maiden sprinting on the dirt at Hollywood Park.