BACKSIDE

(The Tribeca Festival runs June 4-15 in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood and Hammer to Nail has boots on the ground! Check out Chris Reeds’s Backside movie review fresh from the fest. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)

For reasons that remain a bit of a mystery to me, I love to watch horse racing (despite my actual fear of the animal, given its size). Every year, when Triple Crown season dawns, I avidly revisit my favorite contests of yore. One recent Kentucky Derby that was of particular note was in 2022, when the longest shot of them all, Rich Strike, won the event in the final stretch. In his new documentary, Backside, director Raúl O. Paz Pastrana (Border South) invites us into the fascinating behind-the-scenes world of the stables where potential champions spend most of their time, presenting the unsung heroes of the equestrian universe: grooms and hotwalkers.

Mostly Latine and African American (sometimes both), these folks are the ones with the most consistent relationship with the horses. Trainers and jockeys play vital parts in the competitions, but they are not the ones who feed and care for the young contenders. In Backside, we follow the camera into the stables of Churchill Downs (home to the Derby), watching normally hidden relationships develop.

One takeaway is of how limited these poor creatures’ lives are while they are in their prime. Though our subjects provide love, care, and treats, the horses spend racing season—when not on the track—in small enclosures far from sun and greenery. Though Pastrana never directly addresses the many equine deaths in recent years, the risks are always in the background, alluded to in numerous ways, as well as referenced on background televisions.

But the “backside” is otherwise a place of family and community, everyone committed to their tasks at hand. From mid-March to December, they do the hard work of making sure their charges are in the best of health and condition. They apply compresses and braces, tend to the food, and operate the occasional horse jacuzzi. There’s a goat somewhere in the mix, but mostly it’s just tireless people performing much-needed tasks.

The majority of the protagonists are native Spanish speakers, and so Churchill Downs at this time is also filled with sounds and occasional celebrations of various Latin American cultures. Given the climate of anti-immigrant hate promoted by the current United States administration, we cannot help but wonder about the future of the tight-knit collective here on display. It’s 2025: who will look after the horses now and tomorrow? Something to consider as this otherwise engaging film comes to an end…

– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)

2025 Tribeca Fest; Raúl O. Paz Pastran; Backside movie review

Liked it? Take a second to support Hammer to Nail on Patreon!