Barbaro makes it into the movies

The scene starts with a man and his son already in a horse's stall.

"Let him smell you," the man says.

The big bay colt, tethered to the back wall, jerks his head away as the boy moves to pet him.

"That's all right," the man says. "Pet him. Just go ahead. That's it. Touch him harder. Thaaat's it. See? Touch him on the nose. See, that's what's you have to do. Go up and touch him on the shoulder again. Walk up slowly. See, he just doesn't know, because . . . he's used to seeing [bigger] people, and you're smaller."

An endearing scene, and now a touching one, because the man is trainer Michael Matz, with his son, Alex, and the horse is Barbaro. It's from a nearly completed documentary, The First Saturday in May, by brothers John and Brad Hennegan.

The film follows the trainers of six horses trying to make it to last year's Kentucky Derby. Filming 500 hours worth of the Derby trail, the Hennegan brothers are sure they have more footage of Barbaro than anyone else, probably 40 to 50 hours of the horse and the people who cared for him. They also probably have the last footage of Barbaro, taken just before Christmas at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center.

"I was just watching it with my cousin. It's just sad," John Hennegan said last week after Barbaro was euthanized on Monday at New Bolton. "It's surreal to look back at the year and kind of take it all in."

The footage of Matz and his son was taken last year in Florida. The film also shows another trainer singing the praises of Barbaro after the Florida Derby, the last race before the Kentucky Derby. The praise is a reminder that Barbaro's name had not reached the public consciousness yet, since even the trainer, Dale Romans, pronounced it, "Bar-BEAR-o."

In the film, the trainers of the hottest horses going into the Derby were captured: Dan Hendricks, trainer of Brother Derek, with his sons and their friends hanging on his wheelchair; Bob Holthus, hoping to cap a 50-year career with a Derby win with Lawyer Ron; Romans and his fun-loving big-gutted cousin Paul enjoying the Derby ride; Kiaran McLaughlin, a Kentucky boy without pretension but comfortable around the sheikhs of Dubai.

But for the presence of Barbaro, the emotional centerpiece of the film would be the efforts of a true New York guy, Frank Amonte Jr. of Brooklyn, trying to get his horse, Achilles of Troy, to the Derby. When Achilles of Troy pulled up in the Gotham Stakes, the camera stayed on Amonte's face. No words were necessary to capture his pain.

"People really respond to him," John Hennegan said.

The film is true to its mission. The Hennegans don't turn it into the Barbaro story, although his victory at the Derby is the climax, and they effectively portray what happened later when Barbaro suffered his catastrophic injuries at the Preakness without being exploitative.

"We are going to pursue our own Barbaro documentary," John Hennegan said. "He's an important historical figure in the sport."

The Hennegans have been around horse racing their whole lives. Their grandfather once was secretary of the Maryland trainers' association. Their father, a La Salle College graduate, operated the elevators at Timonium Racetrack outside Baltimore, was clerk of scales at Saratoga, and retired after 37 years as a New York Racing Association placing judge.

Brad Hennegan's first horse-related pay came when he was 10 years old, he said, when an old jockey agent paid him to cut out past performances from the Daily Racing Form and paste them in a book.

Both brothers worked security at Belmont Park. John Hennegan worked a couple of summers as a hotwalker.

Both were working in television when they got caught up in the Funny Cide and Smarty Jones stories in recent years. They talked about making a documentary and thought about the idea seriously in 2005, following Afleet Alex's progress. Last year, they quit their jobs and went for it.

"Our original goal was just to follow the trail," Brad Hennegan said. "Not many people know about horse racing, but everybody knows about the Kentucky Derby. We said, 'Let's work backward from there.' "

Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, saw the rough cut of the film in December and gave approval for Hennegan to go to New Bolton and shoot an afternoon with Barbaro. John Hennegan also was back at New Bolton on Tuesday, the day after the horse was put down. He realized that a few more seconds had to be added to the film, which has been submitted to film festivals around the country, including the Philadelphia Film Festival.

As he was leaving on Tuesday, John Hennegan gave his card to Kathy Freeborn, who works the front desk at New Bolton. On the back of Hennegan's card was a replication of an old betting slip from Aqueduct from his childhood, almost 30 years old. The date, Freeborn immediately noticed, was April 29.

"That's Barbaro's birthday," she pointed out.

He had no idea but also realizes that there is no question what their film will be remembered for - the horse who actually won, by 61/2 lengths, on the First Saturday in May.

"I still have a couple of petals from his rose blanket," Hennegan said.