A FEEL-good real-life Hollywood movie shot in Blaenavon is lighting up cinema screens when it opened nationwide at cinemas on Friday (June 4) attracting rave reviews.

Dream Horse starring Oscar-nominated Australian actress Toni Collette tells the rags to riches story of Dream Alliance, the horse raised on a Valleys allotment by villagers, who stunned the racing world by winning the 2009 Welsh Grand National at Chepstow Racecourse.

Filmed in the town in 2019 and also featuring A-listers Damian Lewis, Owen Teale, Sian Phillips and Peter Davison, it has already proved a hit in America, and local people hired as extras may well spot themselves when it launches on UK screens this week.

The movie follows the amazing real-life tale of how supermarket cleaner and barmaid Jan Vokes and road-worker husband Brian enlisted the support of the local community to raise the future National winner on their Cefn Fforest allotment.

Film crews took over Blaenavon to shoot the allotment footage and other scenes, including at the Rifleman Arms on Rifle Street, SJ Racing and the Market Tavern on Broad Street, a house in Upper Woodland Street, and on Commercial Street and Ivor Street.

When Jan first told her husband she wanted to breed a racehorse and keep it at the allotments, Brian said “you’re off your ****** head.”

And Brian, played in the film by Game of Thrones star Teale, also called her a “silly bloody mare”, Jan recalled this week.

The couple had previously bred whippets, pigeons and budgies, but had no experience with raising horses.

They bought a foal for £300, teamed up with local accountant Howard Jones, and got friends at a workingmen’s club to join a syndicate putting up a tenner here, a tenner there.

Dream Alliance, who today lives in retirement in Somerset, steadily made his mark in the racing world, but a catastrophic injury severing his tendon at Aintree in 2008 looked to have ended the dream.

But the group put all their winnings into stem cell surgery and incredibly the horse recovered to go on and secure sporting immortality in Wales’ biggest race, ridden to victory by Tom O’Brien.

The story is even more amazing given that the 50-year married couple started raising their family in a house without a bathroom or heating, where wash-time involved a tin bath.

Cllr Gareth Davies, who was Blaenavon mayor two years ago, said at the time of filming: “Blaenavon is a popular location at the moment, and has been in the past, with Dr Who, the Indian Doctor, Coal House and others being filmed in and around the town.

“Dream Horse will be a popular feature and will have the chance for local people who have been hired as extras to spot themselves. I’m sure it will be popular at The Workmen’s Hall Cinema when it’s out.”

Sadly the hall is currently undergoing repairs and won’t be ready in time to be open this week, but the film is on at Monmouth Savoy from June 25 and at Newport cinemas from Friday.

The inspiring tale first made waves around the world in 2015, when a documentary about the National winner, Dark Horse, premiered at the Sundance Festival in Utah and saw the couple appear on TV and radio shows across America, where they were put up in swish ‘out of this world’ hotels.

Louise Osmond, the documentary director, said at the time: “It resonated with a local community that has seen pretty hard times.

“It’s so mad and improbable and ambitious to try to raise a horse on an allotment with slag heaps in the background.

“Jan Vokes, however, is the kind of person whom I discovered never gives up, who says “no one is going to tell me what my limits are.”

“And she took on the sport of kings after deciding she wanted to have a go.

“Jan bought a thoroughbred mare for £300, who was possibly the slowest racehorse in Wales at the time, and paired her with an ageing stallion, and raised the foal on their vegetable patch.

“Then she badgered the village until a syndicate of them agreed to take on Dream Alliance’s costs for a tenner a week.

“This group of mates take on the elite of that closed world and breed a champion.”

Directed by Welsh filmmaker Euros Lyn, Dream Horse has received critical acclaim in the US after also premiering at the Sundance Festival, with the Chicago Sun calling it: “One of the most entertaining and loveable films of 2021.”

But things were a bit more homely for the UK premiere - at Blackwood’s Maxime Theatre last week!