Educational Media Reviews Online

This utterly charming film is a gentle and unassuming look at the relationship between a young girl and her pony. Although many movies have been produced around this classic theme, this one is different in its attention to the details of horse and country life and utter lack of Hollywood glamour.

12 year old Janie Neelie is a horse lover who works at upscale Longvue farms, helping to train and care for the horses. The owner’s spoiled adolescent daughter discards her newest pony Danny when he becomes injured and through the intervention of a mysterious benefactor, Danny is given to Janie. Despite her mother’s resistance to her relationship with horses in general and the tricks played by the jealous daughter, Janie manages to nurse Danny back to health and together they win the main event in the county fair.

Stables in the gently rolling countryside of Vermont and Connecticut provide a backdrop for an intimate and fascinating look at the social and working life of a rural community and the details of the care and training of show ponies.

What makes this film different is that nothing in it has been glamorized. Wardrobe and makeup has been kept to a minimum. The corrals and stables are filmed without editing, so that you see the dust in the corrals, the fading paint on the stables and the sweat on the horses and the humans. The human relationships are treated honestly as well. Janie’s mother does not want her daughter to become involved with the horsy set, fearing that her daughter will be judged by the cut of her clothes and her bloodlines. Janie wants to be an independent woman and train horses like her boss, Pat. The complex issues around human social strata and the snobbery that goes with them have never even registered with her, although we see many wry examples of these issues throughout the film. We see how the “only a first will do” attitude of the owner places so much pressure on his daughter that she mistreats Danny. An unemployed carpenter who drinks too much and abuses his family is given a job by Janie’s mother’s boyfriend. Janie dislikes the boyfriend at first because she does not want him to replace her deceased father, but warms to him in the end when she realizes that he is the anonymous benefactor who enabled her to become Danny’s owner. What makes Danny so endearing is that these admittedly stock situations are treated gently and resolved without high drama, just as they often are in real life. Rather than moral judgments, we are treated to a look at real people resolving real human problems.

This is a delightful family drama, which should appeal to both children and adults, especially but not exclusively to horse lovers. It is highly recommended for kindergarten through junior high and general adult collections in public libraries.

Awards

• Bronze Chris Award, Columbia International Film Festival