Ruffian

Ten races, ten wins, most of them by a street: that was Ruffian's record, the big black filly who left every rival behind on American tracks in the mid seventies. 'Ruffian' is the 2007 TV movie ESPN Original Entertainment made about her, directed by Canadian filmmaker Yves Simoneau and starring Sam Shepard as Frank Whiteley, her trainer.

It opens in South Carolina in 1973, when Whiteley first sets eyes on a huge filly who's never raced. He's a man of few words who doesn't trust reporters and won't think twice about turning the hose on one who pushes too hard. When Ruffian makes her debut at Belmont Park and wins by several lengths, he senses he's got something special on his hands and turns fiercely protective of her.

The story's told by Bill Nack (Frank Whaley), a young Newsday reporter who follows the filly from her first outings. By 1975, with the Filly Triple Crown won, everyone wants to see her take on the colts, and the owners, the track and television end up setting a head-to-head match with Foolish Pleasure, that year's Kentucky Derby winner. Whiteley isn't sold on it, and on top of that jockey Jacinto Vásquez has ridden both horses and has to pick one.

Shepard, who bred horses on his Kentucky farm, built the part from archive footage and from talking to people who'd worked with Whiteley, and American critics agreed that the film is mostly his. Newsday went as far as saying its racing scenes were more realistic than those in 'Seabiscuit'. It was shot over six weeks in 2006 at Louisiana Downs, with some scenes at Belmont Park itself, and several geldings took turns playing the filly.

The real Bill Nack, whose book on Secretariat later became the basis for 'Secretariat', advised the writers, and a few lines from his own Newsday pieces ended up in his character's mouth. ABC aired it on 9 June 2007, the same day it showed the Belmont Stakes. Whiteley and Vásquez sued ABC and ESPN to have it flagged as a fictionalised account, but couldn't stop the broadcast.

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