A while back we made note of the news of Diane Lane being cast as Penny Tweedy (also known as Penny Chenery) in an upcoming Disney film about Secretariat. Three more important pieces have been added as the film gets ready to begin shooting next week.
>Dylan Walsh, John Malkovich and Scott Glenn are saddling up for "Secretariat," the story of the horse that won the 1973 Triple Crown.
Diane Lane stars as the horse's owner Penny Tweedy, the housewife who broke though a gender barrier to usher Secretariat to greatness.
Walsh plays Lane's husband, a successful attorney who is accustomed to his wife being at his beck and call.
Malkovich plays a charismatic trainer who underestimates the power of Secretariat; Glenn is a southern-bred aristocrat who loses the horse in a coin toss. via
While you wouldn't know it from the bland descriptions above, the story of Secretariat is a really great one and he was a much better horse than Seabiscuit ever was. While the claim that Walsh will play an aristocrat who "loses the horse in a coin toss" could somehow be inferred as accurate, the story is actually a lot more complex and thought out than that, not to mention Penny Tweedy actually lost the coin toss, but the result was them being awarded an unborn foal which ended up being Secretariat. Not like he was lost while stumbling home drunk after a card game.
Of added signifigance was the fact that Secretariat came along at the height of the Watergate Scandal while the country was still unsettled from all the mania that went along with Vietnam. As he was the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown, horse racing's most prized accomplishment, Secretariat was a national celebrity even being featured on the cover of magazines and stuff.
I grew up into the horse races and have actually been to see Secretariat in all his Big Red glory back in his stud time. You could tell the chicks totally dig him Posthumously adding to his very own legend in an extremely awesome way, Secretariat's postmortem exam showed his heart weighed 22 pounds, the largest ever for a racehorse.
