Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story tells the story of a father who, for the love of his daughter, sacrifices almost everything to save the life of an injured racehorse and bring the promising filly back to her former glory. The film stars Kurt Russell (Miracle), Dakota Fanning (“War of the Worlds”) and Kris Kristofferson (Lone Star).
Ben Crane (Kurt Russell) was once a great horseman, whose gifts as a trainer are now being wasted on making other men’s fortunes. Soñador—called Sonya—was a great horse whose promising future on the racetrack is suddenly cut short by a career-ending broken leg. Considered as good as dead to her owner, who also happens to be Ben’s boss, Sonya is given to Ben as severance pay, along with his walking papers.
Now, it will take the unwavering faith and determination of Ben’s young daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning), to bring these two damaged souls together in a quest for a seemingly impossible goal: to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic. However, the true miracle might be that, in helping this injured horse, what they are actually healing is their own family.
Dreamer is a 2005 American sports drama film written and directed by John Gatins in his directorial debut. The film stars Kurt Russell, Kris Kristofferson, Elisabeth Shue and Dakota Fanning. It is inspired by the true story of an injured Thoroughbred racehorse named Mariah’s Storm. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2005 and was theatrically released on October 21, 2005 by DreamWorks Pictures. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics, and earned $38 million on a $32 million budget. It also received a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Family Film.
Dreamer opened in second place at the box office behind Doom, with $9,178,233 earned for a $4,573 average from 2,007 theaters. In its second weekend, it held well with a 33.2% drop to fourth place with $6,132,856 earned for a $2,462 average from being expanded to 2,491 theaters and lifting its two-week total to $17,374,339. It held up even better in its third weekend, only slipping 21.8% to sixth place and $4,794,741 for a $1,832 average from being expanded to 2,617 theaters. In its fourth weekend, it once again held well with a 22.2% slide to $3,728,510 and ninth place, for a $1,363 average from being expanded to its widest release, 2,735 theaters.
The film closed on January 5, 2006, after 77 days of release and grossing $32,751,093 domestically along with an additional $5,990,639 overseas for a worldwide total of $38,741,732. Produced on a $32 million budget, the film performed average at the box office, as it barely recouped its budget.
Out of the Gate
True to the title of his film, writer/director John Gatins states, “This movie is about dreams. It is about the dreams of a young girl who idolizes her father, the dreams of a family that has fallen on hard times, and the dream they all share for the remarkable horse that unites them.”
“All the characters dream of different things,” notes Dakota Fanning, who stars as Cale Crane, the young girl whose belief in an injured racehorse puts her dreams into action. “My character dreams of being around horses with her father, to see her horse, Sonya, race to victory and, most of all, to help her family.”
Cale’s dreams turn into an unwavering faith in Sonya—whose full name, Soñador, means “dreamer” in Spanish—and it is that faith that causes her father to ignore his better judgment and put everything he has into rehabilitating the injured filly, who shows her own brand of courage.
Kurt Russell, who stars as Cale’s father, Ben Crane, offers, “I think the process of bringing the horse back to health brings the family together—especially the father and daughter. Cale’s love of Soñador teaches Ben something that had been missing in his work, which happens to be training horses. Clearly, Ben had lost his ability to dream, but in letting his daughter live her dream, he is able to find it again.”
The son of a now-retired New York City police officer, John Gatins felt a special connection to the events of 9/11 and says that in the post-9/11 world, “I was looking to explore a world that was steeped in Americana, which I think horse racing really is. The first kernel of the idea was about this horse trainer who was down on his luck and maybe had one last chance to make it. Soñador gives him that chance.”
Gatins has written screenplays about football, basketball and baseball, but although “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story” is his first film about horse racing, he reveals that his formative years were actually steeped in horses and horse racing. “When I was growing up, we lived near the Roosevelt horse farms in New York. I used to see them on the way to school. I was only ten when I went to the racetrack for the first time. I always joke that this movie had a very long and expensive research process because I have been a big horse racing fan for so many years.”
Gatins continues, “The New York racing papers cover horse racing in a really amazing and elegant way. The way they describe the horses is as if they are talking about boxers or football players. They give them personalities, so the horses came alive to me as actual characters. I thought it would be great to make a movie about one of those characters. I began going to the racetrack and following the different horses like athletes, watching their careers as they started going for the Triple Crowns, the big races, the classics. These horses are bred to race; they are bred to be super athletes. What is truly remarkable to me is that two horses might have the same bloodlines and physical makeup, but some horses just have more heart and drive.”
Heart and drive is not just about winning races, however. Gatins affirms, “Being a race fan, I had heard some amazing stories about horses that came back from what should have been career-ending injuries. Mariah’s Storm was one such story that really stuck out in my mind.”
A promising filly, Mariah’s Storm was quickly building points towards a bid in the 1993 Breeders’ Cup—in which she would undoubtedly have been one of the favorites—when she suddenly fractured her left front cannon bone in the Alcibiades Stakes. Such a severe injury would normally spell the end of a racing career, but Mariah’s Storm’s owners and trainers did not lose faith. With care and patience, the fracture eventually healed, but the question of whether or not she would ever race again remained.
The question was soon answered. In September 1993, before her injury, Mariah’s Storm had won the Arlington-Washington Lassie, a Grade II stakes race for two-year-old fillies. After her recovery, in August 1994, she came back to win the Arlington Heights Oaks, a Grade III stakes race for three-year-old fillies. In September of the following year, she again confounded prognosticators by winning the Arlington Matron Handicap, a Grade III stakes race for three-year-old and older females, making her the only horse ever to win all three stakes races for her age class at Arlington. Her achievement was so unprecedented that there is now a race at Arlington Park named for her: the Mariah’s Storm Stakes. In 1995, Mariah’s Storm also won the Turfway Breeders’ Cup, upsetting the favorite, Serena’s Song.
Perhaps the most telling sign of Mariah’s Storm’s original promise has come in her progeny. She is the dam to several racing champions, the most notable of which is Giant’s Causeway, the 2000 Horse of the Year and the sire of Noble Causeway who most recently raced in the 2005 Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
… And They’re Off
Assembling the cast of “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story” was something of a dream come true for Gatins. “It was an amazing experience to see the characters I created come to life when the actors arrived on the set,” he states. “I looked around and thought, ‘I wrote them, and now here they are.’ It was very special.”
Gatins acknowledges that the characters he initially envisioned had changed over the course of casting the film. “Originally, I had written three male roles: the grandfather, the father and the son. Then I saw Dakota Fanning in ‘Man on Fire’ and was blown away by her. I knew she would be great in the movie, so I changed the son to a daughter and was thrilled when she took the role. Then we got Kurt Russell on board as the father, and Kris Kristofferson to play the grandfather, Pop Crane. It all fell into place from there, and we ended up with an extraordinary cast. It was so much fun to work with actors who are so good, so versatile and have such great improv skills, because when you are working with horses, anything can happen.”
When Gatins first approached Kurt Russell to play the role of Ben Crane, Russell recalls that he responded to the way the writer/director talked about the movie, as well as to the story. “I thought it was a very strong story about the dreams we all have and the choices we make to live them out or not. But what I especially liked about the movie was that it is a deeply generational story. These people are Kentucky horse people—this is what they do, and there’s no getting around it.Working with horses has been handed down from the grandfather, Pop, to the father, Ben, and now to his daughter, Cale. In this movie, Cale is trying to connect with her father, but it is not until the horse, Soñador, enters this family’s life that they begin healing old relationships and starting new ones.”
Once on the set, Russell remarks that one of the greatest pleasures of working on “Dreamer” was acting alongside Dakota Fanning. “Dakota is one of the best actors I have ever had the opportunity to work with. She is nothing short of spectacular, with an ability that’s second to none. I felt honored to work with her; she’s that good.”
A consummate actress, the young Dakota Fanning threw her all into learning about horses and horse racing for her role as Cale Crane. Fanning relates, “Cale grew up in Lexington, Kentucky—the horse capital of the world—surrounded by horse racing. But she’s never been exposed to horse racing herself, and she’s just itching to get out there with her dad. I had never been around horses that much, so I was happy to be able to train for a long time before shooting with the thoroughbreds and the other horses. I loved knowing all their names, their colors, their socks, and their stars and blazes. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I also learned everything I could about the saddles, bridles and halters.”
Fanning says she was especially thrilled to get into the saddle. “I learned to ride on a horse named Pablo, who was my favorite, and in the movie I ride Harbor Mist, who is one of the horses that played Soñador. He’s beautiful and was really fun to ride.”
It wasn’t long before Fanning shared her character’s great love of everything equine. “I just love horses now,” she enthuses. “They are so beautiful, and I just love to watch them run.” Fanning’s affinity for horses would not end with the filming of “Dreamer.” She had made it known that, after the movie wrapped, she intended to buy a horse of her own—a palomino. She would never get the chance. When filming ended, Russell presented his co-star with a magnificent palomino quarter horse, which she promptly named Goldie.
“There is no one like Dakota,” producer Mike Tollin states. “This is a young girl who has to make the audience believe that she could really take over as the owner of this horse. You get a sense that her character, Cale, has been taught for years about the racing business by her grandfather, Pop Crane. Dakota not only went to see the horses, she learned their histories. She could cite facts and figures from Triple Crown races and from Breeders’ Cup Classics. It was great to watch her come of age as a young horsewoman. She is remarkable.
By contrast, Kurt Russell has owned horses all his life, so while he could relate to his character on that level, he offers that Ben Crane is missing one important quality in his dealings with both Soñador and Cale. “In this movie, I think the part of the equation that Ben is missing is belief. He is very business orientated with Soñador, whereas his daughter falls in love with her, and that love is felt by the horse. I have talked to a lot of trainers, and they all say it’s about the relationship. Some horses want to run for you, others never become interested. Some horses don’t know how to develop that relationship, and some trainers don’t know how to find it. There are a million variables that make it fascinating.”
In the film, Ben Crane knows all the variables of training horses. What he lacks is an understanding of how to communicate with his daughter. He is also unable to heal the rift with his own father that has existed for many years. In truth, neither one of these two stubborn men knows how to bridge the gap.
Kris Kristofferson stars as Pop Crane, but even Gatins had no idea just how perfect the casting of Kristofferson was until he mentioned it to Russell. The actor laughed and said, “My whole life, people have told me I look like him.”
Kristofferson remarks that family resemblances were not the only thing that drew him to the role of Pop. “I liked the script; I thought it had a lot of heart, and I loved the relationship between Pop and his granddaughter. I also love horses, so I liked that working together on Sonya’s recovery is what revives Pop’s relationship with his son. In the beginning, Pop tells them to put the horse down, but Ben’s decision to rehabilitate Sonya ends up restoring Pop’s fatherly pride.”
The rift between Pop and Ben Crane is not the only generation gap in the family. Ben’s wife and Cale’s mother, Lilly Crane, hopes that Soñador’s arrival in the empty stalls of the Crane stable might forge the connection between Ben and Cale that Lilly knows her daughter wants and needs.
Elisabeth Shue, who stars as Lilly, expounds, “My character’s one goal in the movie is to get my family together and to get Ben and Cale to love each other the way she knows they can. Lilly is thrilled when Sonya comes because she sees how it affects Cale—how much she loves the horse and how it’s changing her relationship with her father because they are finally spending more time together.”
Shue recalls, “The thing I loved most about the script was that it was about how a family going through hard times could heal themselves through the hopes and dreams they share, in this case for a horse. They have to face their fears and deal with their problems as a family and learn that it’s not about how much money you have or the clothes you wear. It’s just about how much you love your family.”
The Crane horse farm is also home to an extended family who also stake their futures on Soñador’s recovery: Balon, the groom and an able horseman in his own right, and Manolin, the exercise jockey who must face his own fears if he is ever going to fulfill his dreams of returning to the racetrack.
Freddy Rodriguez, who plays the role of Manolin, notes, “Manolin got into a pretty bad accident early in his career and was forced by his own insecurities to give up racing. He let himself go and gained a lot of weight, so while Sonya is going through a rehabilitation, so is my character. He trains his butt off. It’s a lot of pressure to be thrown into the Breeders’ Cup after not racing for so long. It’s a long shot, but he’s willing to take it.”
His character wasn’t the only one in training. Rodriguez trained for weeks to look like a natural in the saddle. “I felt like I was in jockey school. I did a lot of research and hung out with the real jockeys. I wanted to soak everything in, but I had no idea how hard it is to be in that saddle and hold that position with the stirrups so high. My knees were in this awkward ‘V’ position and my ligaments were bending in ways they’ve never bent before,” he laughs. “It was really grueling on my body; I used muscles I never knew I had.”
Balon is portrayed by Luis Guzmán, who has had some experience with horses, but nevertheless found he had a few things to learn about the beauty of “the sport of kings.” “I was thrilled when I got this script because it was a horse movie and I thought it would be a cool film to do. I have horses—I’m a mucking specialist back home in Vermont—but I still learned a lot about horses and horse racing. I used to watch races and just see the horse running. Being in this movie, I got to see how the jockey literally drives that horse. I got a better understanding of what’s really involved in horse racing. I liked the whole premise of the story, too. Here is this animal that’s broken down, but the story of what happens to her could just as easily apply to a human being, for that matter. Working together to get her back on her feet…you can’t predict what’s going to happen, but you know the outcome might be tremendous.”
The outcome for the Crane family represents a missed opportunity for Ben’s former boss, Everett Palmer, who handed Sonya over to Ben, assuming her broken leg had rendered her worthless. In the movie, it is Palmer who best sums up Ben’s fortunes by calling him “the best horseman with the worst luck.” However, David Morse, the actor who plays Palmer, thinks that his character’s words might actually reveal something about Palmer’s own fears. “Palmer is a man who is haunted by what he doesn’t have, and what he doesn’t have is the instinct that Ben has, although he would never say it. In his head, he believes there is no way this filly could race again, let alone win a Breeders’ Cup, but in his heart, he’s afraid that Ben is really on to something with this horse.”
Horse and Rider
A very different casting process was involved in assembling the horses to play the pivotal part of Soñador. The film’s lead horse wrangler, Rusty Hendrickson, and horse trainer Rex Peterson worked together to pick the right horse for each scene.
Hendrickson reveals, “The hero horse, Soñador, was actually played by several different horses, each with particular talents. We had two real racehorses, three trick horses and two cast horses. Some of the behaviors Soñador had to exhibit made certain horses harder to handle. At points, she had to react, pull back, rear up and paw at the air, etc. We used one horse to do all of those kinds of actions. Then we had what I considered to be the three main horses: Sacrifice, Harbor Mist and Go John.”
“Horses are as individual as people,” Peterson affirms. “What one horse might be good at, another can’t do at all. When I started training, I had at least three horses to do every sequence in the movie. Then I would pick the best horse for the scene on the given day, depending on what the director was looking for.”
Peterson worked with the different horses on mastering the actions that the role demanded. Even something as seemingly simple as having the horse lay down required training. Peterson also taught one of the Soñadors to carry Cale’s backpack, while another one learned to follow Cale wherever she went “at liberty.” Peterson explains, “A liberty horse is a horse I have no contact with through ropes, strings or anything. He goes where I direct him and does what I ask him to do based entirely on his confidence in me.”
By far, Soñador’s most important action was on the racetrack, and a gelding named Sacrifice was the horse who took over the role when Soñador had to explode from the gate and show a burst of speed down the stretch. Once a racehorse in his own right, Sacrifice, whose grandsire was the renowned Mr. Prospector, is now retired and living the good life on a farm.
One of the most challenging actions required of Soñador involved, more precisely, a lack of action. When the Cranes make the decision to rehabilitate Sonya, the first thing they must do is get her up, but at the same time, keep all her weight off her broken leg. To do that, they hoist her up in a harness specially designed for lifting large animals. Modern versions of such rigs are often seen on television when large animals have to be rescued from precarious situations.
However, John Gatins surmised that the harness used by the Cranes would be older, perhaps left over from Pop Crane’s heyday as a breeder and trainer in the 1960s or ‘70s. Using a harness lent to the production by Hendrickson as a model, property master Guillaume Delouche had a copy of the rig custom made to look like an older version of the same. Peterson then had to train several of the horses to accept being in the harness. The horse who ended up taking to it the best was Harbor Mist.
In fact, Peterson managed to train the horses to handle every action the script required…except one. “Soñador is supposed to eat chocolate cake, but not one of the thoroughbreds wanted anything to do with chocolate cake; they wouldn’t touch it. We finally got a quarter horse that would eat the cake. If you had told me at the start of the film that none of the thoroughbreds would eat the cake, I wouldn’t have believed you, but none of them would,” he laughs.
Hendrickson and Peterson also headed the team responsible for teaching both Dakota Fanning and Freddy Rodriguez to ride horses from scratch. “That’s often the best way,” offers Hendrickson, “because you have a clean sheet of paper to write on, so to speak. Both Dakota and Freddy progressed quite quickly.”
Dakota began her training while still in Los Angeles under the tutelage of Lisa Brown, an instructor who specializes in training children to ride. Hendrickson says, “Dakota developed quite an affinity for the horses. Once she got to Kentucky, she continued her training with Rex Peterson, and eventually she progressed to the point that we were able to put her on Harbor Mist and some of the other thoroughbreds. Of course, we had to use a stunt double for some of her scenes in the movie—it wouldn’t have been prudent to do otherwise—but there are several scenes where that’s Dakota on top of Soñador.”
Freddy Rodriguez trained mainly with expert horseman Mark Warrack to appear as if he’d been riding for years. Hendrickson notes, “We taught him the basics of riding first, before we put him in a racing saddle—like how to manipulate the horse’s body with his legs down low. It created a better center of balance for him than to crink his legs up.
After Freddy mastered that, we started shortening the stirrups every day until he was looking like a jockey. Eventually, he was able to gallop horses on the racetrack, but for the actual racing scenes, it was necessary to use a mechanical horse. It wouldn’t have been safe for Freddy to ride a real horse in a field of racehorses.”
For the safety of the actors, as well as for the horses, special effects supervisor Robert Vazquez and his team worked closely with mechanical horse designer Bruce Larsen to create a collection of mechanical “stunt doubles” for the horses in “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story.”
Larsen studied films of horses to capture their movement accurately, especially in the articulation of the head and neck. Vazquez’s special effects team then installed the inner workings that set the mechanical horses in motion. In particular, a great deal of time was spent on the design and implementation of the “crashing horse” seen in the stunning moment when Sonya falls on the track, fatefully breaking her leg.
Larsen offers, “The crashing horse had to have a lot of really fine twists and turns to it, and it had to hold up very well when it impacted the ground. It was a very quick scene, but we spent a lot of time to get it right. In the old days, they would have set a trip wire and tripped the horse, but the horse could be injured. You just can’t do that. Also, when the horse went down there were other horses behind it. It all had to be set up very carefully to make sure we didn’t injure any animals.”
In addition to the mechanical horse, Larsen also had to create a horse that could be mounted on a camera car, which was used for close-ups of actor Freddy Rodriguez in the saddle. Larsen also manufactured another horse, nicknamed “Stuffy,” which was basically an enormous stuffed toy to be used for scenes where the horse had to be lying down for long periods of time. Ensuring that no animal was harmed in even the making of the mechanical horses, their hair was all made from synthetic materials.
With the horses—both live and artificial—ready to go, Hendrickson worked with John Gatins to choreograph the three very different horse races seen in the film, including the climactic showdown at the Breeders’ Cup Classic. He remarks, “Each race was choreographed, broken down and discussed among the director, the cinematographer and myself. We developed a sort of playbook for the races, applying what I knew about their ability…who was fleet of foot and who was not.”
Shooting the thrilling Breeders’ Cup Classic put a great deal of pressure on the entire cast and crew, especially Gatins and his cinematographer, Fred Murphy. Murphy explains, “The horses can only go around once and then they need two days off, which made it a little more complicated. We had to make sure we had enough cameras to get it the first time, or we would have to wait two days to do it again.”
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
Directed by: John Gatins
Starring: Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Freddy Rodriguez, Kris Kristofferson, Elisabeth Shue, David Morse, Luis Guzmán, Oded Fehr, Ken Howard, Holmes Osborne, Antonio Badrani
Screenplay by: John Gatins
Production Design by: Brent Thomas
Cinematography by: Fred Murphy
Film Editing by: David Rosenbloom
Costume Design by: Judy L. Ruskin
Set Decoration by: Maria Nay
Art Direction by: Scott Plauche
Music by: John Debney
MPAA Rating: PG for brief mild language.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: October 21, 2005
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