Frank Whiteley, Jacinto Vasquez, and Thoroughbred Legends are suing those involved with making the made-for-TV Ruffian movie scheduled to air on ABC Saturday night (Thoroughbred Times article). The suit seeks damages of $10 million. It looks like a frivolous suit despite the fact that attorney Lee Parks states that "to Racing Hall of Famers like Frank Whiteley and Jacinto Vasquez, Ruffian is not a dollar sign. She was part of their lives, a miracle they will never forget. Ruffian’s story and their life stories are intertwined. Ruffian has indelibly defined who they are". Then why the $10 million? Is it for Thoroughbred Legends, who own the Ruffian trademark? Can you trademark a racehorse and then charge anyone who films a movie or writes a book about it? Does Peggy Chenery get a kick back on any book written about Secretariat (or the movie in the making)? The lawsuit also smacks William Nack "of falsely claiming he was a close associate of Ruffian’s human connections". I read Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance and Nack never plays himself as any more than a hanger and fringe character. Whiteley would hardly talk to him or anybody else so he ran with what quotes he could get.

All of this being said, I have mixed feelings about the movie, but only as it pertains to its relationship with the demise of Barbaro. Ruffian deserves better than to be used as a tool to capitalize on an audience drawn in by Barbaro's breakdown and subsequent struggle for life. Her accomplishments are so superior to Barbaro's that the two of them should hardly be mentioned in the same sentence. Ruffian won five Grade I races including the Filly Triple Crown (Acorn, Mother Goose, and Coaching Club American Oaks). Barbaro won two Grade I races. Ruffian won multiple Grade I races at 2 and was arguably the most dominate 2yo ever. Barbaro won an ungraded turf stakes and was not weighted within ten pounds of the Experimental Free Handicap highweight Stevie Wonderboy. Ruffian won from 5.5 to 12 furlongs. Barbaro only won around two turns. Ruffian was a two time Eclipse award winner. Barbaro was not an Eclipse award winner. Ruffian was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1976. Barbaro's career will not merit even the mention of inclusion in the Hall of Fame. Ruffian suffered her breakdown flying through a suicidal :22.1 first quarter mile while dueling with six-time Grade I winner Foolish Pleasure. Barbaro's injury occurred running down the homestretch for the first time through a tepid first quarter while off the pace. And yet the opening sentence of a Nack's book on Ruffian reads "In the end, beyond all the screams and cries and lifting of that ominous screen, at the center of all the clamor and chaos and that scent of panic curling upward in the tremulous air, young Barbaro stood naked in the grandstand shade, his shoulder muscles quivering as he shifted on his three perfect feet."