We’re assured no horses were harmed in the making of Ride Like a Girl but the same can’t be said for “equipment”.
Sources tell me at least six expensive movie cameras were destroyed in the attempt — successful, I might add — to bring races to life on the big screen.
The main man behind the race scenes was the energetic and ever-smiling Victorian jockey Chris Symons, who I contacted straight after the movie for confirmation of the alleged broken-camera count.
“Let’s just say we did some crazy s**t to get those shots,” he said with his usual laughter.
The results were outstanding, and really did give you a feel for the fearsome job riders take on in busy fields and big races.
I have to put my hand up now and declare I’m not a movie buff, but I am a bit of an aficionado on the Payne family and I was pleased to give Ride Like A Girl a clear pass mark after watching a special screening before its release to the public later this month.
I was reminded by one of the actors that “this is a movie, not a documentary, so don’t be savage if there’s a bit of sauce added”.
Well, there was a bit of colour thrown in but all for a good cause.
I wrote a book on the extraordinary Payne family back in 1996. The youngest, Michelle, was only 10 at the time and the last paragraph contained a quote from Paddy Payne, who said the story I had written was “probably premature because the little one is likely to end up better than the lot of them”.
Well, she didn’t end up better in terms of race records (Patrick took that honour), but Michelle is certainly the most famous.
The movie concentrates on Michelle, of course, for she was the one who became the first girl to win the Melbourne Cup (Prince of Penzance, 2015) but in the telling of the story director Rachel Griffiths and her team did a terrific job capturing the environment around the family’s upbringing, with Sam Neill pulling off a remarkable resemblance to patriarch Paddy Payne.
Stevie Payne was the show-stealer, though. He was Prince of Penzance’s strapper and Stevie played himself in the movie. Whoever came up with that idea should be kicking up for a decent sling if Ride Like a Girl becomes a Box Office winner.
