3.5 stars (out of 5)
Writer, director and producer Ron Davis’ third documentary is a warm and tender study of Dutch-American Harry DeLeyer (often known later into his career as the ‘Galloping Grandfather’) and his remarkable ‘Cinderella Horse’ Snowman (1948 – 1974). But this is no Seabiscuit-type tale, as Snowman wasn’t a prized thoroughbred but a plow horse purchased on impulse for eighty dollars so that the kind-hearted Harry could save the old nag from the slaughterhouse (or ‘glue factory’).
As if grateful for saving his life, the horse (christened Snowman by Harry’s brood of kids) kept somehow returning home, no matter how many times Harry tried to sell him, and he eventually realised that the beast must be jumping fences to get back to his family. And this led to his decision to enter the horse into local contests and then the bigtime at Madison Square Garden, as news footage shows Harry and Snowman wowing the crowds in the late ‘50s as an admiring commentator discusses Snowman’s fan clubs and adoring child fans.
Harry, now into his late 80s, is shown training his stable of horses and still teaching children to ride, and it seems that he doesn’t like to talk about anything except horses: it’s his kids who mostly mention how, as the oldest of 12 children, the 16 year old Harry worked dangerously with his father in the underground Dutch resistance movement during WW2 and even helped hide Jews in their barn. And Harry’s daughter Harriet has an obvious edge in her voice as she recounts long, long days spent training horses when she was a child, and how Harry’s late wife never forgave him when one of those horses accidentally, yet severely, injured one of their kids.
These hints of decided darkness are certainly important, but the most memorable moments here involve Snowman, with old clips of the nag swimming happily at the beach with Harry’s laughing kids on his back guaranteed to make anyone smile nostalgically. And when this elderly man gets all choked up as he stands solemnly at Snowman’s memorial headstone, 40 years after the beloved critter’s passing, chances are you will too.
And no, really, I’ve just got something in my eye…
I Wake Up Screening 