Let's be realistic.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I was and never have been an avid horse race watcher,but when I was ten years old,while looking for something to watch on television,I stumbled across a race consisting of two horses,one of which was named Ruffian.I remember the name because of the tragic event that took place and recall very little else about it.I remember Ruffian being badly injured and eventually having to be put down.I remember thinking how sad this was,and over the years,having heard next to nothing about it,have recalled it from time to time over the next thirty or so years.When I saw that a movie was made about her and that tragic day,I had to see it.Details that had been vague to me were brought to light.If the story told here was accurate,this was obviously a much loved,very majestic animal destined for greatness.To think that her life was cut short by some insignificant,over-hyped battle of the sexes mishmash is not only sad,it's infuriating.If anything good has come from that day,it's that challenge races no longer exist,thank goodness.

I had just gotten interested in the Triple Crown races for colts when the famous "Battle of the Sexes" aired, and I do remember what happened to Ruffian. If you are not familiar with the story, I won't give away the ending, but the events in the last few minutes of this movie may be upsetting to some people.Sam Shepard did an outstanding job as the horse's trainer. Some of his reactions were not what I expected, but since the characters in this movie were supposedly real, perhaps he really did what was depicted. In that case, Frank Whiteley was an amazing man. He cared about his horses and about doing the right thing, but at some point he had to say yes, it's terrible, but life goes on.Frank Whaley did a very good job as a leading sports reporter. His personality didn't appeal to me personally, but he was quite a character. Vladimir Diaz did well as Jacinto Vasquez, the jockey who rode Ruffian on several occasions, a man depicted as having high moral standards despite all that was happening.The track announcers were excellent. And most of the leading actors gave good performances.The horse action was well done. We saw numerous unusual camera angles of the races. Every win by Ruffian was shown in slow motion.I liked the joke played on the reporters at Ruffian's stall. All this hype was seen as ridiculous by certain characters, as well it should have been. And this was 30 years before Paris Hilton!Effective use was made of what appeared to be real footage of fans of both Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure as horse racing's answer to Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs approached. And of course extras wore the t-shirts and cheered for their horse. This all drove home the point that this event was kind of silly. Several times it was suggested Ruffian could have just competed against the guys--Rags to Riches did just that the day I saw this--but if that never happened, then it couldn't have been in the movie. Displayed on the screen was a reminder that some events in the movie were fictional. Included among these was the specific event--shown in slow motion--that may have caused what I'm not giving away. Also shown on screen at the movie's end was the fact that no one really knows WHAT happened.The only weakness I saw was the fact that Ruffian's early career was rushed. The big event in her life was given so much time that the only way to adequately show her progress would have been to make this a three-hour movie (commercials included) rather than two. Perhaps two and a half would have been enough.But for the time allotted, this was a fine effort.

(SOME SPOILERS) Very factual account of the sensational front running filly Ruffian who blazed across the sports pages and major east coast racetracks, Aqueduct Belmont Monmoth and Saratoga, running up a string of ten victories, setting or breaking track records while doing it. Ruffian ended her racing career by meeting a tragic end at the Belmont Race Track on July 6, 1975 in her long awaited match race with the Kentucky Derby winner and last years, 1974, two-year colt champion Foolish Pleasure when she broke a bone in her right front foreleg, as the two champion horses were battling it out on the backstretch just before the half mile pole.Starting her racing career in Belmont Park on May 22, 1974 in a 5 1/2 furlong maiden race Ruffian ,overlooked by the betters, went on to defeat a field of 2 year old fillies by an astounding 15 lengths. Running up a string of four victories Ruffian then went on to win the Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga by 13 lengths at the unbelievable time of 1:08 3/5. A feat that even the great Secretariat and Man O' War, breaking 1:09 at six furlongs as a two year old, couldn't do!It was in the fall of 1974 that the racing world began buzzing about a match race between the super filly Ruffian and champion two year old colt Foolish Pleasure with both horses undefeated in their respected, two year old Colt & Filly, divisions. This lead to Ruffian suffering a sprained ankle in her rigorous training schedule by her trainer Frank Whiteley, Sam Shepard, that sidelined her for the rest of the year. The injury caused Ruffian to miss a chance to face Foolish Pleasure at the mile two year old Champaign Stakes at Belmont Park, that Foolish Pleasure won, on October 5, 1974.1975 started out like gang busters with trainer Frank Whiteley getting his now three year old filly Ruffian into razor sharp condition as she stormed out of the starting gate and rolled over all the competition. Winning every race that she was entered in including the filly version of the Triple Crown, The Triple Tiara, that included the one mile Acron the 1 1/8 mile Mother Goose and the grueling 1 1/2 mile Coaching Club American Oaks setting stakes records in each. This set the stage for the big showdown at the Belmont Race Track the 1 1/4 mile match race that was to take place on July 6, 1975. Tragically it was to be the last time that the great Ruffian would ever step on a race track.Heart-wrenching movie that leaves you using up all your handkerchiefs as we see how Ruffian ran her heart out and ended up breaking down just as she was about to break away and take the lead from Foolish Pleasure in their match race. Ending up being put to sleep when she, with everything possible being done to save her life, not only re-fractured her right leg but broke her left as well as she came out of surgery and tried to stand on all fours which the poor filly, even with a brace on, couldn't do.The tragic death of Ruffian left Newsday sports reporter Bill Nack, Frank Whaley, who covered the great filly's career races so traumatized that he just couldn't bring himself to ever watch a horse race or write about horse-racing again. Great racing action, archived film as well as reenactments, makes "Ruffian" one of the best films about horse-racing ever made. The movie brought you back to those magical days in 1974-75 when Ruffian set record after record in burning her exploits across the sports pages that ended so tragically just over a year after she made her debut on the racing scene. What other athlete, human or animal, ever accomplished so much yet ended his or her career so suddenly. It's next to impossible to find any one in sports that can even remotely compare with her!Ruffian was buried in the park that she had some of her greatest victories as well as met her only defeat that also ended her life Belmont Park and was buried at the finish line where she was in 10 out of the 11 races that she raced ahead of any of the horses that she raced against. There's also a strange irony in not just Ruffian the great filly but "Ruffian" the movie that was broadcast on the ABC network on the evening of June 9, 2007! It's on that very day that another super filly "Rags to Riches" raced into the horse racing record books by winning the 1 and 1/2 mile Belmont Stakes becoming the first filly ever to win that race in 102 years! You can just see Ruffian having a track-side seat at the finish line, where she's been eternally entombed, smiling as "Rags to Riches" roared across the line beating the boys and doing what Ruffian set out to do, but sadly didn't, at that very same race track some 32 years ago.P.S As for "Rags to Riches" amazing Belmont Stakes victory Ruffian in winning the Grade I Coaching Club American Oaks, the very last race she was to win in her racing career, which was the exact same distance as the Belmont Stakes amazingly ran that race a full second, five lengths, faster then the Belmont Stakes winning Filly! How About That!

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