Like the vast majority of little girls, I wanted a pony. I remember saving a couple hundred dollars thinking I could buy one and keep it in our backyard. My grandmother used to take me to all the horse movies, from My Friend Flicka to The Black Stallion Returns. I still want a pony, but as an adult realize how impractical and expensive said pony would be.

One can still dream, however, and this heartfelt documentary helps shed light on what it really means to own a pony… and not just any pony—a prize-winning thoroughbred race horse.

Sports fans—and particularly horse-racing fans—know that on the first Saturday in May, the penultimate race is run—a race more popular than the Indy 500 or the New York Marathon: the one and only Kentucky Derby. Every year, 40,000 horses are born, and every year only twenty compete in that fateful, famous race—and there can be but one winner.

First Saturday records a full year in the lives and histories of six trainers and their horses as they prepare for the 2006 Derby. As fate would have it, one of the equine “stars” is the beloved Barbaro, who won the Derby by huge lengths; unfortunately, a life-threatening leg injury sustained during the Preakness forced the beautiful winner to be euthanized.

Fortunately for the horse-racing the uninitiated, the film describes the qualification process for the Derby. With each “stake” race a horse runs, the horse earns winnings; when the winnings are tallied, the twenty horses with the most winnings secure their participation in the Derby. Of the six horses the film follows, five of them make it to the Derby—a fairly lucky bit of work on the filmmakers’ behalf. And of the five who make it, three are considered top contenders.

While the preparation and races and such create an interesting and solid foundation, the strength of the film is in the stories of the trainers. One was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; another was paralyzed from the chest down during a riding accident; one was a local boy with a small stable, dreaming about his goal of racing in the Derby. All six of the subjects provide touching stories and fodder for legends, as we cheer them on in their quests for horseracing gold. While watching these men struggle to fulfill their dreams, their stories merge together, from a horse owner’s dream to the American Dream. The blood, sweat, and tears of their struggle is that of the classic Horatio Alger novel, Struggling Upwards.

The filmmakers themselves are two brothers who grew up in horseracing and thus had unparalleled access to the stables, the trainers, and the races. For telling the human story this worked quite well, but what I was really itching for was more footage of the horses and races themselves. Part of that human story—the motivation for their action—is the horse. So why not show more of the horses, even as, say, a trainer voices over the footage?

Ultimately, the film suffers something of an identity problem. It cannot seem to decide if it is a film about the horses or the people behind the horses. While the nitty-gritty of the business is interesting, the most beautiful and heart-pounding footage follows the horses and their races. This is not just because I love horses. It is because, artistically, the horse footage was shot the best and proved the most interesting. It is a shame the filmmakers did not spend more time with the animals.

Horseracing fans will certainly find First Saturday in May a gem, regardless of its shortfalls. Those with only a passing interest, however, will probably not be drawn in without the more stunning footage lost to the cutting room floor.

The First Saturday in May is rated PG-13 for brief strong language. That is indeed about it.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jennie attended a promotional screening of The First Saturday in May.