Frannie Stewart candidly admits she is not a Hollywood movie buff. "I never go to the movies," she says. But a year ago, a friend gave her a video of Demi Moore's movie G.I. Jane and she says, "It was the best thing I had ever seen." At that time, she had a gray quarter horse filly on her Oak Tree Ranch in Bandera, Texas who just "ran the pack" as Frannie says. "She was just the queen of the pasture." So the name seemed like a natural. She decided to name her G.I. Jane.

"But the name was already taken," she said, with a hint of disappointment in her voice. "So I decided to find something else just like it. That's how I came up with Fightin Jane." Little did Frannie know than that she was picking the perfect name for this now 2-year-old filly with a fighting spirit for both the story of the filly and that of Frannie reads as much like a movie script as G.I. Jane.

Fightin Jane has already earned Frannie more than $167,000 on the race track. On Sunday, July 23 she will be hoping to add another $259,000 to that total in the $742,000 Rainbow Futurity at Ruidoso Downs Race Track & Casino in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico.  But while Frannie’s selection of a name proved appropriate for her little filly that got no respect, it would turn out to be an equally appropriate name for herself for Fightin Frannie was diagnosed this past March with throat cancer.

"I was told I had a growth on my vocal chord," she says with a very gravely voice affected by radiation treatment for which she quickly apologizes. "They surgically removed it and said they got it all but radiation treatments are still part of the therapy."

For seven weeks, five days a week, her husband, Don, of 25 years would drive her 50 miles from their ranch in the hill country of Texas to San Antonio for radiation treatments. "The treatment took all of about two minutes once we were there," she said. But they took their toll on Frannie.

The rides from Bandera to San Antonio were quiet ones. "After the first week of treatment, I lost my voice and couldn't speak for six weeks," she says. "The doctor said the radiation can't tell the difference between bad cells and good cells and so it effects them all. It was hard to swallow so all I could eat was tapioca pudding and macaroni and cheese."

Did the treatments tire her? "Oh, yeah, I was tired,” she says. "I think it weakened my immune system because I picked up a bug really easy. I guess I've slowed down a bit but the doctor says everything is looking good and my voice is expected to be back to normal in a few months. But can we talk about the horse?"

Fightin Frannie would much rather talk about Fightin Jane. Because just about the time the radiation treatments ended, Fightin Jane was making her first start as one of 144 2-year-old quarter horses in the trials for the $471,000 Ruidoso Futurity. Frannie couldn't cheer out loud without a voice for the filly, nonetheless, Fightin Jane had one of the 10 fastest times and was a finalist for the Grade I Ruidoso Futurity.

"I never dreamed when I named her that she would turn out to be a fighter the way she is on the race track," Frannie says. Then again, Frannie never dreamed she would be racing the gray filly.

The Stewarts are what is commonly called "market breeders" in the industry. They breed horses for the sole purpose of selling them to someone else who then races them. As a matter of fact, it has been more than five years since the Stewarts actually raced a horse.

"We decided a few years ago that we wouldn't race horses any longer," she said, "so that we could be more credible with the people who buy our horses. We didn't want anyone accusing us of keeping the best ones for ourselves and selling the others. So, we sell them all."

All of them until Fightin Jane came along although they tried even then to sell her.

"We put her in a yearling sale," continues Frannie, "and I really thought she would bring between $10,000 or $12,000." But the bidding never got anywhere near that amount. Determined not to give the filly away, the Stewarts did what is known in the sale business as a "buy back" for $5,000. "I don't know what the last actual bid was on her," she says.

So now the Stewarts were ready to do something that they hadn't done in years, run a horse under their own name. "I had spent some time with a friend who raced a horse named Dash Free that won something like $200,000. I went with her and it was great fun. I told Don that I had the bug."

And, frankly, she was "fightin" mad. "I picked the breeding myself on Fightin Jane and she didn't get any respect at the sale," said Frannie. "I thought she was a great looking filly who deserved more than that." Obviously, both Frannie's choice of breeding and Fightin Jane's looks had been snubbed and Frannie didn't like it so the Stewarts were heading back to the track themselves.

Several years before, Frannie had met trainer Russell Harris at the now defunct Bandera Downs Race Track which closed on June 20, 1995.

Harris, himself a veteran trainer of some 30 years in the quarter horse business, is a native of Alabama where he used to catch passes on his high school football team from eventual Oakland Raider superstar Kenny Stabler. Harris remembers the meeting with Stewart very well.

 "She was the nicest lady," said Harris. "She told me she wanted me to train a horse for her but she didn't have anything good enough right then. I thought it was just one of those nice things people say. I never thought any more about it."

Then, one day last fall, Stewart contacted Harris and said she finally had one she thought was good enough. "Heck, it had been four or five years since the first time I talked with her," Harris said.

He went to the ranch and looked at the filly. As is typical of the race horse business, everything is in the eyes of the beholder. "I didn't say anything to Frannie but I thought the filly was a short, fat gray filly," Harris, who has trained many Grade I winners and should know a runner when he sees it, said. "She didn't appear to be anything special. In fact, if I had seen her at a sale, I wouldn't have said 'I have to have that one'."

Harris got the filly and his training techniques paid off for the filly not only qualified for the Ruidoso Futurity but on June 10th won the $471,000 race and it's $166,000 winner's share by coming from behind other horses to get the narrow nose win.  For that matter, Harris not only won the race but had the second and fourth-place finishers as well.

What was the most money the Stewarts had previously won in a race?

"Oh, I think we won $25,000 once in a thoroughbred race but no where near what we got from this race," says the mother of five and grandmother of eight.

Are any of the children or grandchildren in the racing business?

"No," Frannie says, "they haven't been. But they are showing some interest now."

How has the filly changed? "She has changed a lot," Frannie says of Fightin Jane. "Now in her stall at the barn or in the post parade before a race, she is really docile, unlike when she was in the pasture. But once that gate opens, she's back to the same filly I saw in the pasture. She has the guts to go right between horses. She isn't intimidated. That’s what impresses me most about her."

On July 6th at the same New Mexico track, Fightin Jane again was among the 10 fastest qualifiers from 155 horses competing in trials to the $742,000 Grade I Rainbow Futurity. In her trial, the filly nobody wanted at the sale outran Tiny First Effort, a filly that everyone wanted at a sale last year when she brought $550,000.

Fightin Jane will now compete on July 23rd in the Rainbow Futurity with it's $259,000 pot of gold awaiting the winner. And then on Labor Day, Frannie hopes Fightin Jane will be in the $2 million All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs to compete in the world's richest quarter horse race that carries a $1 million check to the winner.

Only one horse in more than 40 years has won all three of Ruidoso's Triple Crown races and his name was Special Effort. Then again, Fightin Jane and her owner are pretty special themselves. Who knows, by Labor Day, Frannie may have her voice completely back and she will be the one cheering her gray filly that got no respect loudest.