It's difficult to be as thrilled by a winner when you know the outcome, but you just have to cheer for Bob Champion, the jockey who was not only cured of the cancer which, without treatment, would have killed him in months, but went on to win the Grand National on a horse (Aldaniti) which, a few months before, had nearly been put down after snapping a tendon. John Hurt is perhaps a little too expert at anguish (there are times when he looks like a dying crow) to be cast as Champion but, apart from a few obvious doubles in the Grand National, he does a fine job in and out of the saddle. Champion himself obviously insisted that the film should not show him as a saint; and so it presents his weaknesses and vices along with his strengths and virtues. Jan Francis is all warmth and sympathy as the girl who chases and catches him; in fact all the women in the cast are good, from Alison Steadman as his sister, through Ann Bell as the horse's owner's wife, to a young Kirstie Alley, and the nurses who help pull Champion through. Aldaniti plays himself.


©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes