A boy-and-his-horse tale loosely based on the IRA's unsolved 1983 horsenapping of a Derby winner, this adventure film opens with the animal being abducted and brought to a farm run by Garritty (David Warner), a borderline IRA sympathizer. After Irish authorities refuse to pay a 5 million pound ransom, sinister terrorist O'Rourke (Mickey Rourke) orders the horse to be shot, but before that happens, the animal escapes with Kevin (Tim Walsh), a stableboy who has run away from reform school. Kevin and the horse are subsequently befriended by a tinker (Ian Holm) and his granddaughter (Laura Murphy).