Australian
Screen

Clip description

Harry Telford (Martin Vaughan) watches his new horse arrive on the docks from New Zealand. His wife, Vi (Celia de Burgh), wonders why the horse looks so skinny. The buyer, Dave Davis (Ron Liebman), thinks the horse is a joke. He tells Harry to sell him. Harry offers to lease him for three years, in return for two-thirds of his winnings. Harry believes in the horse’s bloodlines.

Curator’s notes

This is the first scene after the introduction. By moving the horse’s death to the front of the film, the story is able to end on a high note, when he wins at Agua Caliente. In the American release version, the death is put back at the end of the film, to maintain a tension that would not have been possible in Australia, where the story was too well known. The arrival on the docks is a flashback to five years earlier, and it too contains the elements of a classic story: the ugly duckling horse with facial warts that no-one wanted will become a champion. Seabiscuit (2003), an American film about another champion racehorse, begins with a similar idea. Immediately, Williamson establishes that horseracing is about money, with dialogue about how much he has cost, what he will be worth, who will pay for what. Tom Burlinson gets no lines in these scenes, but we already sense his growing bond with the horse. There is also the sense that Telford is another kind of ugly duckling – a man who struggles to inspire confidence in other people, even his own wife. The horse and the trainer are both underestimated.