THE heart-warming story of Welsh Grand National winner Dream Alliance, will make its premier this month.

Dark Horse, directed by Louise Osmond, tells the rags to riches tale of the horse born on a slag heap in mid-Wales, that goes on to win one of the most famous races in the UK.

The film will receive its world

premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this January, and will be released in the UK and Ireland on 17th April 2015 through Picturehouse Entertainment. The film is co-financed by Film4, the BFI Film Fund and The Film Agency for Wales.

Set in Cefn Fforest in one of the poorest mining valleys in Wales, the story begins in early 2000, when Jan Vokes, the barmaid of the local working men's club, hears a regular talking about the time he owned a share of a racehorse.

Walking home that night, Jan has an idea. She'd bred pigeons and whippets before, she thought. How hard could it be?

She decides she's going to take on the "sport of kings" and breed herself a racehorse.

Jan recruits her husband, Brian – a former coal deliveryman and nightclub bouncer – and pub regular, Howard, who was reminiscing about his racehorse in the bar.

Together they buy a £300 thoroughbred mare – possibly the slowest racehorse in Wales – pair her with an ageing stallion (discount stud fee: £3,500 + VAT) and raise the foal on their slagheap allotment.

They name him Dream Alliance after the 23 friends from the village Jan cajoles into a forming a syndicate paying £10 a week.

To the astonishment of the racing elite, Dream becomes an unlikely champion, leaving his blue-blooded rivals standing. Until one day, running in a race at the famous Aintree racetrack, he suffers a potentially fatal injury.

His owners refuse to let him die. By now Dream is a local hero and genuine source of hope and inspiration in the valley. Instead, his owners pour their winnings – £20,000 – into high-risk, revolutionary stem cell surgery.

18 months later, defying all odds and judgement, Dream makes a heart-stopping comeback in the Welsh National.

In all the excitement Dream is entered for the biggest race of all: the Grand National. If he won he'd go down in history, but the Grand National is run at Aintree and that meant returning to the scene of the accident that nearly killed him.

Dark Horse is Osmond's fifth theatrical documentary with her first being the award winning Deep Water in 2006. She is joined by producer Judith Dawson, director of photography Benjamin Kracun (For Those in Peril) and editor Joby Gee (For No Good Reason). Protagonist Pictures is handling international sales.