We watched it too, but we missed the beginning, started halfway through... so we didn't quite get who was going after the horse!
And at the end they never said who poisoned the horse.
I also didn't quite get that the foot blew up on that last race, but they just bandaged it and he was gonna race again a couple weeks later. Not that I don't believe that would happen, but I wondered who I was supposed to think was the hero of the story, except the horse.
I'd never seen the movie before, and never read that book, so we were a little lost.
The dark headed guy, Dave with the wife owned the horse. The old cranky guy was his trainer who recommeded he buy the horse. When Dave first saw hiim he didn't like him and wanted to sell, I think he was just a yearling. The trainer talked him into letting him lease the horse for 3 years and he would give him 1/3 of the winnings. At first the horse was very lazy and wouldn't run. But the strapper, Tom Burlison, figured out what it took to make him run. Burlison and the horse bonded.
I think they knew that they were risking his foot, but everyone concerned with the exception of Burlison was just in it for the money and he worked for them.
I beleive it still is a mystery exactly what happened at the end to the horse. It could have just been a normal colic, or he could have been poisoned. The horse was just so good no one wanted to run against him, and no one was making money, as they all said he was a freak:). Money was the driving force.
I really don't know that there was a "hero". Just a good story with a mystery at the end.
Becky