‘Ruffian’ tells the fabled filly’s tragic story

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The nation mourned when the great Barbaro was euthanized less than nine months after winning the 2006 Kentucky Derby. Many also wept three decades ago after the undefeated filly Ruffian went hoofbeat to hoofbeat with 1975 Kentucky Derby winner Foolish Pleasure in a match race one fateful Sunday afternoon at Belmont Park.

That storied race, which ended in tragedy 600 yards from the starting gate, became the inspiration for “Ruffian,” a bittersweet made-for-TV movie that airs the same day as the Belmont Stakes – Saturday – both on ABC.

William Nack, 66, a longtime Sports Illustrated writer, served as a consultant and is a main character in the film. As a young reporter for the Long Island newspaper Newsday, Nack covered most of Ruffian’s short-lived career.

It’s merely coincidence that the Ruffian story airs a year after Barbaro’s plight: The film had been in development for several years.

“Ruffian” follows the filly’s career through her early training all the way to one of racing’s darkest days, when she shattered bones in her right foreleg and had to be put down less than 12 hours later.

The film captures the allure and backstretch mystique of the racetrack, as well as the often quirky characters who populate it, including Ruffian’s crusty trainer, Hall of Famer Frank Whiteley Jr., played by actor-writer Sam Shepard.

Shepard, who breeds horses on his Kentucky farm, didn’t meet with Whiteley but watched archival film and television interviews with the trainer and also spoke to some of his associates.

Nack said Shepard really crawled into Whiteley’s skin.

“Frank Whiteley was known as an irascible, difficult guy to deal with among the press,” Nack said.

Once, Nack said, when Whiteley was hosing down a horse, “I kept bugging him for an interview and he finally got tired of it and turned the hose on me. But truly, I never had a bad moment with him. You just had to pick your spots.”

Veteran actor Frank Whaley, who portrays Nack, spent several days with the sportswriter to get an idea of his mannerisms, his typing style and his speech patterns before shooting began.

“The more I read about the story, the more we learned how much Bill was influenced by the horse and how he influenced the story,” executive producer Orly Adelson said.

“He gave us an outside look from someone who actually participated in the story. He was amazing in the process, a part of every decision. He knew how it looked and how it felt, and that was a great advantage for all of us.”

The movie was filmed over a six-week period in 2006 in Shreveport, La., with several scenes also shot at Belmont Park in New York. Five horses were used to portray Ruffian, all of them geldings.

Nack’s character serves as a narrator, and some of the dialogue in the film comes from his Newsday stories, particularly his description of Ruffian:

“She looked like an outside linebacker … with muscles on her eyebrows,” Nack wrote. “She was built like a watch, a study in balance … with a neck and head so refined, like a drawing by da Vinci.”

One of the film’s more compelling scenes comes shortly after Ruffian’s breakdown. Nack dashed across the track that day, and in the movie version, he narrowly escapes being trampled by Foolish Pleasure, who kept galloping all the way to the finish line to complete the match race and collect the winner’s check of $225,000.

“I didn’t even think about the other horse, but here came Foolish Pleasure,” Nack said. “I could feel the wind of the horse and I heard (jockey Braulio) Baeza yell. I think he yelled my name – ‘Hey, Bill.’ I just know the hair stood up on the back of my neck.”

Nack made it to the other side of the track and reached Ruffian before her trainer, being driven around the racing oval in a car, was able to get there. Nack saw the veterinarian approach, “and he had blood all over his hands.”

“I asked him what happened, and he told me she’d shattered her sesamoids,” Nack said. Why all the blood?’ I asked. He said the bone had just exploded out.”

The film re-creates how surgeons at the track hospital tried to save Ruffian long into that night.

The horse began thrashing about when she was coming out of anesthesia, reinjuring her foreleg and also fracturing her elbow. She had to be euthanized.

Ruffian was buried on the Belmont infield the next day, and a plaque marks her grave at the historic racetrack.

Nack, who has written a memoir, “Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance” (ESPN Books, 2007), also was on hand at the 2006 Preakness the afternoon Barbaro broke down.

“It was deja vu,” he said. “Barbaro almost made it, and you’d like to think that Ruffian would have had a helluva better shot at surviving today.”