Film preview: Secretariat - A champion and wonder horse

Secretariat was one of the most celebrated racehorses ever and it was only a matter of time before his story reached the big screen

• Nelsan Ellis, Otto Thorwarth, and John Malkovich in Secretariat, the story of a legendary racehorse who in 1973 became the first US Triple Crown winner in 25 years, setting records that still stand

MAN'S obsession with the horse is at least 17,000 years old: among the celebrated cave paintings in Lascaux, France, there are 364 equine portraits, indicating that Paleolithic humans were already fixating on the animal when they weren't busy inventing stone tools or agriculture.

That fascination has never waned, which makes the movie Secretariat, out in the UK at the beginning of next month, a high-definition fait accompli: one of the more celebrated racehorses ever, Secretariat eventually had to be the subject of a movie, even if what he did, and how, makes him the most unlikely movie hero.

At the risk of mix-breeding metaphors, the movie racehorse is usually an underdog, one whose victories transcend the winner's circle. The Pie, hero of National Velvet, was an upstart representative of wartime pride in common Englishness and a rejoinder to the British class system. Seabiscuit, the subject of Laura Hillenbrand's 2001 book (and Gary Ross's 2003 movie), was portrayed as an antidote to Depression-era malaise, an improbable champion, ill-equipped physically but representative of a "yes we can" spirit in a New Deal era.

The subject of Disney's Secretariat, directed by Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers), though, is generally considered the apex of equine evolution (and modern breeding). In 1973, Secretariat became the first US Triple Crown winner in 25 years, setting records that still stand at the Kentucky Derby and the gruelling, mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes - a race that he won by an unheard-of 31 lengths. There was never a horse like Secretariat, which makes him a problematic subject for drama. Or any entry in the sports-film genre, where formula virtually demands an unlikely winner.

"In doing the research, the thing I realised was that we were never going to make Secretariat an underdog," says Mike Rich, the film's screenwriter. "But Penny Chenery is the underdog. And that's what I think makes it work."

Chenery, played by Diane Lane, was Secretariat's owner, a woman born into a Virginia horse-breeding family and who, on inheriting her father's Meadow Farm, entered a racing world that viewed her gender the way it viewed saddle sores. As the movie tells it, her ingenuity and toughness kept Meadow Farm afloat. Chenery is also seen as possessing an almost cosmic connection with her horse, something that is as much a staple of horse movies as the come-from-behind victory.

The whole horse-whisperer phenomenon isn't entirely fictional, says Sandra Olsen, co-curator of The Horse, an exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History.The human and the equine have evolved together, she says. "The horse began as our prey, then became our partner. And the horse-human relationship keeps redefining itself. Or, perhaps, the horse redefines itself."

She points out that while, in most of the West, horses are no longer used as "animated machines," they are still employed for transportation and labour in Mongolia and outer regions of the former Soviet Union. And sport remains a prime human-horse activity everywhere. The animal's link with man is ingrained in American popular culture, in particular - the Lone Ranger could tell Silver to go get help, and the horse practically asked for names and numbers; Mister Ed was certainly smarter than the human sweeping out his stall.

And in advanced societies, discoveries about the therapeutic potential of horses continue to be made, and even filmed: The Horse Boy, a 2009 documentary, chronicled an autistic child's progress in the company of Mongolian horses. Wallace says the horse-human bond is "particularly true in the case of Secretariat". He adds: "Obviously, one can romanticise it all, but I think Penny Chenery had a sense that connected her to that horse."

Lane, who has been in a number of movies that have brought her into contact with horses (Cattle Annie and Little Britches, Lonesome Dove), says she realised "they really are individuals with egos and personalities that must be addressed if you're going to be working with them, which means standing near them, or riding them, or expecting any predictable behaviour. Please and thank you go a long way with a horse."

Everyone has his or her favourite horse movie. For Rich, it's Phar Lap, the 1983 Australian racehorse film. For Lane, it's The Black Stallion, the 1979 adaptation of the Walter Farley novel about a young boy and a wild horse shipwrecked together on a desert island. The two go on to conquer the racing world.

Despite the emotional bond between horse and boy that has made The Black Stallion such a memorable film - and a thriller, given the horse's fictional Secretariat-like come-from-behind run - the movie's director, Carroll Ballard, can't envision making a picture like that today. "Impossible," he says.

"I was given the power to do the picture, and nobody messed with me, and I got to spend a lot of time with just the boy and the horse and letting them do what came naturally. The studio didn't even know they were making the movie because the brass had been kicked out and new people came in." It was also done under the executive producer Francis Ford Coppola's umbrella, "and they kind of lost track of it".

Chenery, now 88, is less romantic about the kind of human-animal bond at the heart of The Black Stallion, or even Secretariat. "It's a Disney movie," she says, laughing."It's a very good Disney movie and I enjoyed it, but we know they have to convey certain values and photogenic moments."

About her relationship with her most famous horse, she is matter-of-fact. "A three-year-old stallion, nipping and bucking all the time?" she says. "No, we didn't have a spiritual connection. We had a mutual respect, but he didn't stand still long enough for me to look in his eye and say a prayer. He was smart, and a ham. He knew when he won. And he knew when he lost." Which, she concedes, didn't happen very often.

• Secretariat is released in the UK on 3 December.