The countryside. A beautiful place to be. Way out there, lives a proud Blackfoot family and their big ol’ horse ranch. The Red Crow family is a hardworking and loving family, and the main focus is the daughter Logan, who enjoys living it up with the horses and some perspective from her father Allison doing all he can to take care of the family as well as the horses. He feeds them oats, wrangles them, and drives out to the field to check on them. But he’s getting old and it’s hard to keep up with the speedy horses anymore. Luckily, he’s got a reliable team and Logan is the most hardest working of all. It’s because Logan has understood horses since a very young age. When she was 3, Allison took Logan out for wild horse rides, and when Logan was 15 she got into competitive horse riding and continues on with it thanks to the support of the other family members. She has Racey Bigsnake to coach her, and her mother Jayme Bigsnake who urges her to pursue her dreams. Logan plans to compete in the Calgary Stampede among a bunch of men for once instead of watching from the stands. Over at the Calgary Stampede, Logan talks about the kind of races ladies do on horses but she feels she’d be too savage to compete in those and instead wants to take on the bigger challenge. At the races, Logan and her family team known as Old Sun compete against some other teams consisting of male riders and it’s certainly pretty intense with all the horses going in and out for riders to switch around on. Logan doesn’t make it first and not even the announcer knows what her gender is, but it still was an amazing effort out there.
As they get back to the ranch, Logan’s father reveals he wants her to get a good education, unlike him who dropped out at grade 11. Logan however enjoys the life of horse-riding and wants to pursue it instead of going to college. Logan also shares stories of how she was in a toxic relationship and getting bullied by people (I can relate to the former an awful lot), and we get treated to some more of her horse-riding as she says that being with horses made her feel better no matter what people said to crush her spirit. The family continues to support her, but make no mistake horse-riding can be extremely dangerous, and this is what we learn at the mid-point as her father goes on to explain how Logan took some serious bruises and injuries from falling off a few different horses and explains how scary it was for him to witness and experience. Logan also talks about some of the horses she rode, her special opportunity to take place in a Woman’s relay, and she prepares to head on out after hearing the news. Logan makes it all the way out with some special horses, and is competing against another woman. It’s intensity at Enoch Park and does Logan win and make history? If she does, will she continue pursuing horse-riding or stay in school? Or perhaps she’ll find a way to do both? You’ll have to watch this documentary to find out.
It’s a beautiful that captures two important subjects: Family and pursuing your dreams. As we follow Logan on her many races and journeys, it makes one feel compelled to cheer her on as she tries her best to race and become a champion. We also get a lot of footage of horses and see some pretty amazing races in the process as well. If the intensity doesn’t speed up your heart or get you up and out of your seat, you might want to get professional help. This documentary is a real adventure with lovely shots of nature, intense horse-riding, and heartfelt interviews that focus on family history, and the current happenings of the Red Crow family today. Banchi Hanuse really put together something amazing and incredible. I’ve never known too much about horses, so I found this to be both a thrilling ride, as well as a pleasantly educating one. This is a documentary worth watching.
Toronto Readers, watch it at HotDocs! Tomorrow April 29th at 2:30PM over in Scotiabank Theatre 7, May 3rd at 3PM in TIFF Bell Lightbox 2, and it’ll be streaming from May 5th to 9th.
