DARK HORSE – Review

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

In a charming, truth-stranger-than fiction tale, the documentary DARK HORSE details how a group of working-class people in a Welsh mining town came together to breed and raise a champion race horse.

This was truly a horse of a different color – actually the horse at the center of this delightfully unlikely tale is not even dark, but a beautiful golden color, with a white blaze and white socks. Louise Osmond directs this entertaining, inspirational film with a little comic touch, introducing us to a group of ordinary people who, as a sort of bar bet lark, do the impossible. As the film tells us, breeding race horses in a pursuit  where costs were high and chances of success low, where many in the field are wealthy people who do it as a money-losing hobby. The idea that people who knew nothing about race horses and lacked a pile of cash would even try it would be preposterous enough here in the United States, but in Britain, the idea has the added layer of crossing the class divide, in a place where horse-racing is still truly “the sport of kings,” or at least the aristocrats.

In a Welsh village hit hard by the collapse of the mining industry, Jan Vokes, a bar maid at a local working man’s club, hits on the idea of breeding and running a thoroughbred race horse.

What would make a woman who knew nothing about race horses think she could breed a winning horse? What would make a group of ordinary people in a Welsh mining town where the industry had closed up, dip into their meager funds to by a share in race horse? Forming a syndicate to buy lottery tickets might seem a better bet but clearly this crazy idea was about more than money, which is part of the story’s charm. The whole preposterous idea has the feel of a lark, a kind of “what the heck” bar bet where working class people might get a little laugh out of kicking at the class divide.

Jan has bred winning racing pigeons and whippet racing dogs before but knows nothing about horses. Jan and her husband Brian, a rough-looking former bouncer with missing teeth and tattooed knuckles, pool funds with bar regular Howard to buy a thoroughbred mare. Jan does her genealogy research and comes up with a bargain-priced mare with a disappointing racing record, and then wheedles a lower price. They breed the mare to the best stallion they can afford, a horse with a better racing record, and get a beautiful golden-coated colt with a white blaze and white socks who looks every inch a thoroughbred. Raising the colt on a slag head back lot, the horse’s surrounding are decidedly working class.

To fund the cost of raising and training the horse, Jan posts a notice in the bar offering to sell shares in the race horse. The idea takes off in the village, and a syndicate of 23 owners is formed. Having skimped on cost for the foal’s parents and stable, Jan decides the syndicate needs to investing in first-rate training, and so the working class syndicate finally moves into the realm of the race elite. The trainer reluctantly agrees to accept the horse, maybe a little impressed by the audacity of the idea. The horse, dubbed Dream Alliance, shows little promise – until his first steeple chase race.

The horse becomes a winner that inspires headlines like “Slumnag Millionaire” and “Nags to Riches.” Certainly American horse racing has also had syndicates of people of modest means backing winning race horses but in Britain, where class divisions are much more a daily fact of life, crossing that barrier has a little more kick. Part of the film’s fun is not just the winning horse in this true story but the swagger of the owners, a motley crew with some decidedly unattractive members, swanning into the owners clubs, the bailiwick of the elites, because, well, they are owners.

Dream Alliance goes on a streak of winning or placing, earning money for his delighted backers. The horse’s strong suit is the steeple chase, a race far different than the straight-forward run of the Kentucky Derby. As director Osmond shows in race footage, horses start without a gate and run a course of jumps over hedges and water obstacles, in what looks like a dangerous free-for-all where a stumble by one can bring down a string of horses and jockeys in a deadly pile.

One of the most surprising parts of the film is that is is also a tale of the owners’ love for their horse. When Dream Alliance suffers a career-ending injury, the track officials offer to destroy him, as many owners, for whom a horse is just a money maker, would do. But Dream Alliance has won their hearts as well as races, and the syndicate decides to try to save the horse’s life.

The most startling part of the story might be the stem-cell treatment the owners pay for, a treatment that not only saves the horse’s life but allows him to race again. With this unexpected second chance, the owners go for the big races – running the Welsh National and then entering the Grand National, which is run on the same track where Dream Alliance was injured.

DARK HORSE is both inspirational and uplifting, the kind of feel good tale of underdog courage and ambition – the owners and the horse – that makes one feel anything might be possible. It is also a tale of love, and the owners giving back to the horse that gave them so much, for one wild, unlikely ride.

DARK HORSE opens in St. Louis on June 3rd, 2016

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS