Metacritic reviews

No other child actor — nor adult one — has ever captured the pure, unconditional love between human and animal as Elizabeth Taylor does here. And few other films have caught the can’t-wait-another-second excitement of childhood fixation.

A children's classic and among the best family movies of all time. [19 Feb 2006, p.2]

One of the most likable movies of all time.

Elizabeth Taylor, at 12 already a raging beauty, plays Velvet Brown -- the passionate girl who loves horses and wants to win the Grand National; it's perhaps her most perfect performance and one of her best-loved. [16 Nov 2001, p.C1]

Indeed, in its simple comprehension of the faith and affection of youth it is likely more tender and affecting than even the story of Lassie was. And it certainly is more exciting in its vivid, dramatic display.

A good movie for kids and armchair Freudians (1944), with 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor training her pet horse for the Grand National.

Pandro Berman, the producer, and Clarence Brown, the director, have made it into a conservatively exciting and engaging film whose chief virtue is its acting, especially a letter-perfect, beautifully felt performance by Mickey Rooney as the jockey.

Story is told with warmth and understanding.

MGM's lavish adaptation of Enid Bangold's evergreen novel is an at times winsome but nonetheless enjoyable yarn that remains a popular favourite among adults and children alike, dealing as it does with the notion of endeavour and the conviction of pursuing one's dreams.

As the parents of a busy family in an early 20th-century English hamlet, Donald Crisp and Anne Revere save this treacly family drama from choking on its own sentimentality.