Nostalgia is like a summer breeze: it comes and goes, but it’s hard to control. I was just minding my own business earlier this month when suddenly nostalgia hit, in one very specific way. I was struck by the memory of one of my favorite childhood movies—Racing Stripes.
When I relayed the plot of Racing Stripes to a friend, it was easy to laugh about. The film follows Stripes (Frankie Muniz), a zebra abandoned by the circus and raised among racehorses, who dreams of becoming a racehorse himself. Racing Stripes is laden with early 2000s humor and the barest of social commentary. There was so much to this movie that completely went over my head as a kid. And that’s saying something, considering its DVD case got as worn as a book from the 1800s by the time I grew into my big-girl pants.
So, once I found myself getting burnt out on Baldur’s Gate 3 and in need of a break, I decided to sit down and finally tackle my long list of “Need To Watch” movies. Yet as I scanned through the list, deliberating between Dogma and Sid and Nancy, my mind kept wandering back to Racing Stripes. I didn’t want to watch something new that might irrevocably change who I was as a person—I wanted to see Frankie Muniz as a zebra.
And that’s exactly what I did. Now, I can definitively say this: Racing Stripes still bangs supremely, perhaps even more so now than it did in 2005. If you haven’t watched it yet, then I pity your strange, tragic little life. Here’s why:
A tale of two stripes
On a stormy night in Somewhere, Kentucky, former racehorse trainer Nolan Walsh (played by a very DILF-y Bruce Greenwood) finds a zebra foal abandoned in a cardboard box in the middle of a dirt road. Initially, he plans on taking the foal to a zoo, but his teenage daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere), manages to convince him to keep the foal. She hates the idea of animals in cages, after all.
All the uncaged animals then come out to meet and greet the new arrival, the most welcoming being Franny the goat (Whoopi Goldberg) and Tucker the Shetland pony (Dustin Hoffman). Channing names the foal Stripes, and since none of the animals know why Stripes has stripes (they’re from Kentucky, they’ve never seen a zebra), they all roll with the idea that he’s just a funky-looking horse.
Unfortunately for Stripes, so do the “other” horses. He’s immediately enamored with the racehorses on the other side of the fence, and when he meets two thoroughbred colts, he tries to play-race with them. But their father, Sir Trenton (Fred Dalton Thompson—truly a wild choice), brings out the horse bigotry and refuses to let his son, Trenton’s Pride, interact with “those animals.”
Fast forward a few years, and Stripes gets his kicks by racing the mailman and crushing on the new jumper in town, Sandy (Mandy Moore). He longs to “properly” race and show those racehorses who’s bosshorse. Similarly, Channing wants to race with Stripes, since her mother was a successful jockey. However, Nolan is largely resistant to this, since his wife and horse died during a race. Multiple plot obstacles abound amidst barnyard antics, featuring Reggie the rooster (Jeff Foxworthy), Goose the wanted criminal pelican (Joe Pantoliano), and the fly brothers Buzz and Scuzz (Steve Harvey and David Spade). Oh, right, there’s also a bloodhound named Lightning, who has exactly three lines and is voiced by Snoop Dogg.
Does this movie sound insane yet? Because this movie is insane. When I was a kid, the insanity just sort of made sense to me. Of course, there are secret “illegal” races where the horses just gather and race around a tractor on their own. As an adult, though, every little plot beat of this movie hit me like a truck, one after the other. The horse racism, BAM. Horses kidnapping horses and other horse-on-horse crimes, BAM. The fact that they tamed a zebra for riding in less than half an hour, BAM!!!
Fun fact: The reason you don’t hear about domesticated zebras very often is that their backs haven’t evolved to carry us, so riding them for long periods of time would cause them immense pain. There are cases of zebras being tamed and ridden, as this movie clearly shows, but it’s a long and arduous process since zebras are also testy, nasty little things. Hayden Panettiere was under an NDA for years regarding a concussion she got after being thrown from one of Racing Stripes’ zebras. Yikes!
I must say, Racing Stripes held up a LOT better than I thought it would. Sometimes, you rewatch an old movie and wince the entire way through, wondering what you ever saw in it. In this case, I just feel incredibly vindicated that Baby Me had such good taste. Yes, a lot of the jokes are dated and stupid like many were in the 2000s, but it’s still emblematic of a kind of movie you don’t really see anymore. A wholly original and unique movie that isn’t a reboot or part of a series.
Racing Stripes is very much its own weird little thing, quirks, warts, and all. And you know what? I love it for that. The fact that they got such an eclectic cast together, coupled it with a ridiculous premise, AND made it all live-action, with the talking animals as the A-plot? It’s utter lunacy in the best way possible.
Plus, it’s absolutely adorable. This movie catered to my horsegirl heart as a kid and now caters to my horsewoman (with slight baby fever) heart to the umpteenth degree. If anything, you need to watch this movie to enjoy the cute animals and ponder how the crew got them to line up in each shot so it looks like they’re actually having conversations.
All in all, perfect movie, 10/10. It makes me excited to see Strays, even though that’ll be a wildly different experience. But hey, talking animals are talking animals, and since we’ll never get another Beverly Hills Chihuahua, this will have to do.
(featured image: Warner Bros.)
Published: Sep 2, 2023 07:44 pm