In my morning-line piece on next year’s Oscars published in March, I named “Secretariat” as a long-shot pick, reasoning that Disney’s Oct. 8 release could very well follow in the hooves of “Seabiscuit” (2003), which nobody thought had a prayer of being nominated for Best Picture. And that Tony Angelotti-engineered coup was in a field of just five pictures!

It wouldn’t hurt, though, if Disney’s came up with a less generic-looking poster for this fact-based story about the 1973 Triple Crown Winner, whose triumph gave a big boost to thoroughbred racing. The intriguing duo of Diane Lane and John Malkovich play owner Penny Chenery and trainer Lucien Lauren. Director Randall Wallace has an Oscar pedigree — he was Oscar-nominated for writing “Bravehart” — but it remains to be seen if “Secretariat” will be entered at the unofficial starting line for the movie awards season, the Toronto International Film Festival. The release date suggests that’s a possibility.