Long odds, but what a pay out if the
gods are looking down on you with favor.
Few have seen this nearly-perfect, indie film,
“50 to 1”. The film takes its name from Mine That Bird’s odds at the 2009
Kentucky Derby. Bird’s unlikely road to victory inspired the movie. The odds on
the making of the movie, described by Producer, Director, and Co-Screenwriter,
Jim Wilson, and Co-Producer and Co-Screenwriter, Faith Conroy, in the extras on
the DVD, appear to have been pretty long as well.
Bird’s story was so amazing the film
had no need to embellish this fairy-tale win.
The movie opens with a punch: Chip
Woolley (Skeet Ulrich), coming to the aid of a stranger, Mark Allen (Christian
Kane), in a bar brawl. The two scraggly cowboys become friends but soon after
loose touch. A decade later Mark and Chip meet up and Mark Allen hires a
down-on-his-luck Woolley, as a trainer.
Allen learns of an opportunity to buy
Mine That Bird, the 2008 Canadian Champion 2-year-old male horse, and sends Woolley
to look him over. Woolley is not particularly impressed with the small,
somewhat lopsided Bird, a Kentucky-born gelding who originally had been
purchased at the Yearling Sales in 2007 for $9,500 by a Canada trainer. But when Woolley
sees Bird run he changes his mind.
Mark Allen, on behalf of the New Mexico partnership
he co-owns, buys Bird for $400,000. Allen’s partner Leonard “Doc” Blach
(William Devane) is not impressed by either Woolley or Bird. Allen, loyal to his
old friend Woolley and trusting of Woolley’s assessment, offers to buy Doc out
if Doc ultimately is unhappy with Bird.
Doc looks to be the more horse-astute
of the partners. Bird’s initial races in the U. S. are not impressive: second
place in the Borderland Derby and fourth place in the Sunland Derby. Woolley is struggling and in the midst of his
other troubles crashes his motorcycle, shattering his leg.
Meanwhile, Woolley and Mark Allen,
along with everyone involved, are astonished when Mine That Bird receives an
invitation to the 2009 Kentucky Derby. Even though Bird’s career earnings in
graded-stakes races had qualified him for the invitation no one believes Bird
has a serious hope of winning.
The New Mexico owners and their families, and
Woolley as trainer, decide to accept the invitation as the lark it is likely to
be, and an experience of a lifetime. Unlike the million-dollar horses against
which Bird will be competing, Bird is not flown to Kentucky. Instead, Woolley, his leg still in
a cast, drives Bird from New Mexico to Louisville.
The movie portrays Churchill Downs and Derby events as elegant,
the bourbon plentiful, and the other owners derisive of Mine that Bird and the rustic
cowboys who brought him. Pretty close to the mark as I recall news and events
in Louisville
that year.
The New Mexico
cowboys, as they are known at the Derby
run-up, have luck riding with them as they secure the Derby-winning Calvin
Borel as their jockey. The film makers had similar luck securing the affable
Borel to play himself in the movie.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Even though you likely know the end result of the race, it’s still a thrill to
see the small Mine that Bird, played by Sunday Rest, start out about eight
lengths behind the pack and then make his move to an astonishing six lengths
win.
The movie, like the horse and its
owners and trainer, is a long-shot worth betting on. It’s available on DVD and
Netflix.
