When Director-Producer John Gatins (37) wrote Dreamer, he did so with the hope that people would get a wholesome feeling from watching this movie. Gatins, who grew up in upstate New York, which is horse country, never gravitated much to pleasure horses, but was drawn to the racing scene.

“I went to the racetrack when I was really young, and I just loved horse races,” explained Gatins.

He partly got the idea of Dreamer from the tragic parts of the racing world. “In my years of reading and watching horse racing, there was the occasional tragedy of a horse that would break down, and that left a really big impression on me. I would always think, we can put a man on the moon, but why can’t we heal a horse that broke its leg. So, I had that idea in my head of being a great story if some guy could figure out a way to save a horse’s life.

“The Ben Crane character (played by Kurt Russell) was the first character that came to mind,” explained Gatins, who started to think about the theme of this story after the tragic events following 9/11. “My dad was a New York City cop (now retired). It made me long for life as a kid when things were simpler. It made me think of the movies that I love, and it inspired me to want to make a classic movie. So, I went back to my Ben Crane character and saw him as this tender mercy kind of protagonist. He’s a guy who was down on his luck, and he’s got one last shot to get his life together. And this broken down racehorse is kind of him, but in horse form, and together they heal each other