A Come-From-Behind Winner - The Washington Post

Stories of hard-luck horses and the people who love them have galloped across movie screens for decades. From "National Velvet" to "My Friend Flicka" to "Seabiscuit," the horse that comes from behind is beloved by Hollywood.

In "Dreamer," the horse is an elegant chestnut thoroughbred named Soñador, Spanish for "dreamer." Her young cheerleader is Cale Crane (Dakota Fanning), whose father, Ben (Kurt Russell), trains racehorses. When Soñador suffers a potentially career-ending injury in a race, her owner fires the trainer and orders the horse destroyed. Instead, Ben Crane takes Soñador as part of his severance pay, hoping to rehabilitate her for breeding.

Cale befriends the horse and learns to read the "Racing Form" with her grandfather (Kris Kristofferson), a trainer whose relationship with his son is chilly, even as he funds Ben's hopes of breeding a champion. Soñador proves infertile, but her injured leg heals enough for her to run again.

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Crane puts the horse in his daughter's name and conditions the filly for a return to racing. In the tradition of storybook horses, Soñador's comeback is at the Breeder's Cup Classic, one of thoroughbred racing's most prestigious events.

The slow-motion race action shows how Soñador threads her way through a rugged field of horses toward the finish line.

The film was inspired by the true story of Mariah's Storm, a promising horse who broke her shinbone in a 1993 race, but returned to the track a year later, winning eight more races.

The DVD includes a feature on Mariah's Storm and a segment on taking care of a horse, featuring Fanning and many of the film's 40 horses. Another bonus illustrates how the race scenes were filmed, with cheering crowds and careful choreography of the running horses. Russell, Kristofferson and Fanning also offer commentary on their roles.

While "Dreamer" requires hard-core horse aficionados to suspend disbelief -- an injured filly striding to victory in the Classic, a race always won by male horses? -- it supplies a look at determination, family bonding and the horse of many a dreamer.

DREAMER: Inspired by a true Story Dreamworks Home Enter-tainment: DVD $19.95; rated PG; available Tuesday.

-- Kathy Blumenstock

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