FILM
HARRY AND SNOWMAN ★★
(G) Selected cinemas (82 minutes)

It's surprising some enterprising filmmaker hasn't already leapt on the story of Snowman, the Long Island plough horse rescued from the slaughterhouse to become a national show-jumping champion in the 1950s. As recounted in Ron Davis' documentary, it's a classic underdog tale in more ways than one: Snowman's rider and trainer Harry de Leyer too was something of an outsider, a self-made Dutch immigrant who managed to beat high society at its own game.

You can imagine all this as the basis for an old-fashioned Disney telemovie, told from the perspective of one of de Leyer's eight children, with plenty of ready-made heart warming scenes. At one point Snowman was sold to a neighbour, but his devotion to de Leyer inspired him to leap the fence and race back home.

Inevitably, there are details that don't fit the uplifting picture, and to his credit Davis allows them to emerge. Interviews with de Leyer and others leave no doubt his success sprang in part from his obsessive, egotistic personality: he seems to have few regrets about treating both his horses and children as business assets, or persisting as a rider far past a conventional age of retirement.

On the other hand, Snowman comes across as sweet-natured to the core. Aside from being a champion, he was also the family pet: alongside footage of his feats in the area, we're treated to home movies of him romping at the beach with half a dozen de Leyer siblings on his back.

As filmmaking Harry and Snowman is undistinguished, relying heavily on corny TV-style devices. Extracts from old newspaper articles are accompanied by the clack of a manual typewriter; a sense of movement is imparted by an overblown, pizzicato-heavy score.

The film's ideal audience would probably consist of older children with a special love for horses (and a faith that they enjoy performing tricks on cue). Those with less investment in the subject may well feel the essentials could have been covered in half an hour. Still, it's worth packing some tissues for the finale: whatever its flaws, Harry and Snowman has the pathos innate in any account of past glories shared with a long departed friend.