Thaindian News

October 7, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): The Disney movie, ‘Secretariat’ will be making it to the theaters this weekend and Diane Lane playing the owner and breeder of the famous horse is hoping to steal the thunder.

Amazingly, Diane had never been to a racing track before she started shooting for this venture. The ‘Secretariat’ became the first horse to win the US Triple Crown championship in 1973. The records created at the Belmont Stakes as well as the Kentucky Derby stand unbeaten till this day.

Secretariat still stands tall, the only equine to have made it to the list of ESPN’s top 100 athletes. He was also the only non human to have been featured prominently on the cover of the Times, Sports illustrated and the Newsweek all in the same week.

The director of this ambitious venture, Randall Wallace, says that the movie will salute the passion as well as the untiring energy of Secretariat. The never say die attitude is yet another quality that has been lauded over the years.

The struggles of Penny Chenery, the housewife who turned into an able horsewoman is certainly going to be one of the main features of the movie too. The courage and dedication as well as the force of will that had made the demure housewife turn around her father’s dying ‘Meadow Farm’ into a success along with winning the triple crown thus achieving her father’s dream has been portrayed superbly by Lane in the film.

Chenery hadn’t been a feminist. Yet she took on the male dominated world successfully way back in the early part of the 70s. She dismisses it in her interviews by saying that she had the good fortune of having a good horse.

Disney has great expectations from the movie as does Lane. Chenery hopes that it will bring her good memories back while helping people to enjoy during this terrible time of widespread depression and melancholy.