Casey's Shadow (PG, 1978)

In CASEY'S SHADOW, Lloyd Bourdelle (Walter Matthau) and his three sons hit pay dirt when they buy a cheap mare, bred to a top stud. The foal's hooves are soft and Lloyd gives up on the animal, but Casey, the youngest son, insists on training the colt regardless. The horse, Casey's Shadow, develops into a surefire winner and Lloyd enters the horse in the big money All-American race. But Casey injures the animal by running it too hard. Thinking that this is his last shot at glory and money, Lloyd decides to risk the horse and run him anyway. Casey's Shadow wins the race, but he's crippled. Against the advice of the vet, Lloyd asks for the leg to be reconstructed, spending all his winnings on the horse.

Lloyd is an uncommonly decent man who has paid a heavy price for his ethical approach to horse training: he's dirt poor, his wife has left him, and he gets no respect in the horse racing world. Faced with the possibility of a win, Lloyd reconsiders his life-long aversion to jeopardizing the health of a horse. He risks losing his self-respect and, more important, the respect of his three sons.

A 13-year-old girl viewer who has no connection to horses found Lloyd's moral quandary compelling, and she sat rapt through much of the movie. She was upset by the depiction of greedy owners who train horses too hard and race them too early. This teenager couldn't have agreed more with the harsh view the movie takes of this practice, summed up by the vet who declares: "It makes me g-d sick." As much as she liked the movie, the 13-year-old viewer noted that the story moves slowly and is somewhat unfocused. Children used to contemporary movies with their obvious good guys and bad guys might feel a bit lost amid characters subtly questioning their moral principles.