 Sixteen-year-old Saverio lives together with his mother and her lover, Marcello, a smalltime criminal, in a rundown part of Rome s suburbs. Saverio keeps trying to improve his financial situation again and again by stealing car radios and selling them off to Marcello, until one day he gets caught. Because Saverio is still a minor, Bianca, a dedicated lawyer, decides to take a personal interest in his case. But when she turns up at his mother s apartment and wants to have a serious talk with her and Marcello, a fierce argument ensues, in the course of which Marcello throws Bianca out. Saverio leaves the building with Bianca, and takes her up on her offer of driving him into Rome. But when she has to stop at a petrol station, the young boy leaps behind the wheel and drives off with the car. However, in the middle of the night the car has gearbox trouble. Saverio leaves it standing at the side of the road and decides to fight his way across the fields through the pouring rain to the next village. But after a while he reaches a stable. Since he s totally wet through, he decides that he ll spend the rest of the night there. Quietly, he creeps into the stable; several horses are standing there. One of them, a fine-looking black stallion, seems to be particularly restless. Saverio senses instantly that something is hurting the animal. And he realises that a strap has been pulled too tight, and must be causing him incredible pain. He loosens the strap, and the horse immediately calms down. Saverio gently strokes the animal s flanks, while the horse sniffs at the strange boy in curiosity. A deep feeling of kinship overcomes both of them. Little does Saverio know that he has landed up in one of Italy s most famous racing stables, and that the horse is none other than Brac, a stallion that his trainer Vanni considers the successor to the legendary champion Ribot, a horse that Vanni rode to victory time and time again and who used to be referred to as the "stallion of the century". However, just like Ribot before him, Brac is a difficult, unpredictable horse; he ll allow nobody near him, he won t allow himself to be saddled, and won t allow himself to be ridden either. When Vanni catches the strange youth in his stable in the early hours of the morning with Brac, his favourite horse, and instantly senses that the young man has a special relationship with Brac and that the horse appears to trust him, he spontaneously offers Saverio a job in his racing stables. Saverio, however, has to obey him unconditionally. And this is something that Saverio, with his fierce love of freedom, really has no time for. They soon have a fierce argument, and at the height of it, Vanni locks Saverio into a room in order to show him who s boss. Saverio won t stand for this. And when Vanni goes to check on him a short while later he is outraged to discover that he has run away. Deeply disappointed, Vanni decides to forget all about Saverio. But he hadn t reckoned with Brac. The horse breaks out of his stable and goes off hunting for Saverio. Vanni follows him in amazement and a short while later they do indeed find Saverio. Now that he sees how much the horse actually trusts the youth, he decides to give him another chance. But the police soon arrive at the stables, looking for Saverio. Vanni denies having seen the boy. However, after the police have gone, Vanni is taken to task by the incensed jockey Todini: how dare he employ a thief, let alone conceal his existence? That kind of behaviour is the height of irresponsibility, indeed it s almost criminal! Little do the two men know that Saverio is eavesdropping on their conversation. Enraged by Todini s behaviour, but also filled with despair that his past keeps on catching up with him, Saverio takes his leave of Brac for a second time and, with a heavy heart, he goes off. For the next few weeks he s permanently on the run. It s a sad and miserable existence. The worst part of it all, however, is not the fact that he s permanently hungry; it s the overwhelming urge he has to see Brac once more. When he reads one day that Brac is to take part in a Derby, he can t stand it any longer, and he sets off for the racetrack to see his favourite horse once again. He arrives just at the point where Brac is meant to be led into the starter box. But the horse is shying and refusing, kicking, and rearing up, and however hard they try, they just can t get him to go into the box. At this point Saverio, with hardly a thought about the possible consequences for himself, leaps out from where he has been hiding and goes up towards his friend Brac. It only takes a few words from him before the horse is completely calm once more, and he leads him into the starter box as if it were the easiest thing in the world. And Brac wins the race effortlessly. A new champion is born. Vanni, however, intercedes with Todini and the owner of the stables on Saverio s behalf. And as a result, Saverio is finally able to go back to work in the company of his favourite horse. But shortly after this, something happens that threatens to destroy Saverio s new life in the stables yet again: Brac and three other valuable horses get stolen... The police are at a complete loss. The thieves have left no traces, and nobody has any idea of where the horses might have been taken. But the police inspector is pretty sure of one thing: the thieves must have had an accomplice who also worked in the stables, otherwise they wouldn t have had such an easy time of things. Since he s stolen before, and his reputation isn t all that great anyway, Saverio reckons that he ll be suspected pretty soon of having helped the horse thieves. He confides his misgivings to Vanni; Vanni encourages Saverio when he tells him of his plan to go and hunt down the horses and the thieves by himself. So Saverio gets in touch with Bianca, the lawyer, and asks her to help him. Bianca, who is extremely pleased to observe the transformation that Saverio has gone through, is happy to help him, though she doesn t think he ll be all that successful as a detective. But in order to do something at least, she takes Saverio to Massimo, editor-in-chief of one of Rome s daily newspapers. He promises to tell them the moment he hears anything about Brac or the other horses and also advises them to take a look at some of the less important, unofficial races, closed to the public, where promising racehorses get tested out. But none of their visits to these races brings Bianca and Saverio the success they are hoping for. Moreover, Saverio assumes - correctly - that the thieves can t cope with Brac and that the horse is refusing to race. Deeply disappointed, Saverio goes back to the stud farm. It is there, one evening, that he accidentally overhears one of the stable lads having a conversation with a stranger about a racehorse. A horse that won t let anyone lead it into the starter box. Filled with excitement, Saverio hides in the boot of the stranger s car and in this way he eventually ends up in a stable that looks abandoned, in which he finds Brac. He notifies the police, the criminals are placed under arrest, and Saverio is the hero of the hour. His fame spreads as far as Rome, where his mother is overjoyed to realise that her son is doing so well. Saverio s success encourages her to take a stand for the first time ever against Marcello: when he leaves a suitcase full of drugs in her apartment one day she contacts the police. But she still doesn t have the courage to get back in touch with Saverio, since she thinks it s her fault that he ran away from home in the first place. Meanwhile, at the racing stables, Saverio is being encouraged by Martina, the stable owner s beautiful daughter, to train as a jockey. At first, Saverio is overawed by this new challenge. But old Vanni encourages him too, and so Saverio finally begins his training. He s not worried about the practical side of it, he s very good with horses. And as far as the theoretical side of things is concerned, he s able to rely on Vanni s support. Soon, the day of the examination arrives. Saverio passes with ease. Little does he know, however, that on that very day, Vanni, who congratulates him, overjoyed, has just discovered that he is suffering from an incurable disease and does not have very much longer to live. At this point, Saverio could have had a wonderful time as Brac s jockey. But the young man still doesn t have complete control over his violent temper, and he still seems unreliable. And one day, when he allows a stable boy to provoke him into a loud argument, which ends up with the two of them coming to blows, Saverio is forbidden to work with Brac. He isn t even allowed to go anywhere near the valuable horse. But neither Vanni nor the owner of the stables have taken Brac s obstinacy into account. Brac knows better than any human being what potential Saverio has in him. The horse therefore becomes more and more nervous and restless, until finally he won t let himself be calmed down or ridden by anyone other than Saverio. One day, when the horse kicks the jockey who is meant to be riding him in the Grand Prix de Paris so hard that he has to go to hospital, there s only one other person who can replace the jockey and ride the horse to victory: Saverio. The day of the race arrives, and Saverio and Brac, ranked as outsiders, are on the way to the start. But suddenly Saverio loses his nerve. The pressure of expectation weighing down on him is too heavy to bear, and his self-confidence isn t up to it. He s only a boy from the backstreets of Rome, how on earth will he be able to ride such a top-class horse as Brac to victory in such an important race? He refuses to ride. And now, all those who d always considered Saverio unreliable and unrestrained seemed to be proved right. But Vanni remembers just how nervous he himself had been before his first ever major race with Ribot. He gives Saverio a pep talk and at the very last moment he manages to persuade him to go to his starting position. And the miracle happens. Outsiders Saverio and Brac win the race by a very convincing margin. Saverio is overjoyed and falls into Vanni s arms. But the excitement proves to be too much for Vanni. He collapses, and dies. Happy, however, in the knowledge that Brac is now following the same path as the great Ribot, and that Saverio will be his (Vanni s) worthy successor. Shortly afterwards, Saverio receives a visitor on the stud farm. Bianca has brought Saverio s mother to see him. Mother and son embrace each other tearfully after such a long separation. And, full of pride, Saverio shows his mother the wonderful horse who helped him become what he is today.