Plot

In the 1920s Texas, Indian farmer Charley Eagle is dreaming of winning the Kentucky Derby with his Black Hope horse but things change when oil is found on his land and the Black Gold colt is born.

In the early 1920s, in the desert near the Texas-Mexico border, Charley Eagle (Anthony Quinn), is an Indian who owns a small, hardscrabble ranch and is training a horse, "Black Hope,". He thinks that the horse is capable of running in, and winning, the Kentucky Derby. Charley runs into a young Chinese boy, David Chung ('Ducky' Louie), whose father has been killed by a smuggling gang while pretending to help him enter the United States illegally. Charlie takes the young boy back to his small ranch, where Charley and his wife Sarah (Katherine DeMille) adopt him. His plans for "Black Hope" go awry but oil is discovered on his land and this intensifies his dreams that "Black Gold" (Highland Dale,) the colt of "Black Hope" can do what his dam couldn't do. The end frame of the film reads: "Suggested by the winning of the 1924 Kentucky Derby by the horse Black Gold."—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

South of the Mexican border, Davey, a Chinese boy, is orphaned when his father, whom he only recently met, is killed by thieving white men. The boy is befriended by an Indian named Charley Eagle, whose father was also killed by white men. Charley enters his thoroughbred mare, Black Hope, in a race south of the border and is tricked by Dan Toland, a crooked American, into selling Black Hope to him after she wins the race. Charley returns Toland's money in the night, retrieves Black Hope and returns to his humble ranch in Oklahoma with Davey. Charley's wife Sarah, who is well-educated, insists that Davey attend school, but when the schoolboys tease him because of his yellow skin, Davey refuses to go. Finally, Sarah decides to adopt Davey, and he agrees to begin school. After an oilman gives the Eagles an advance for allowing him to drill on their land, Charley pays for a thoroughbred stud owned by Colonel Caldwell to impregnate Black Hope. The mare is unable to walk following the birth of her male colt, however, and Charley must shoot her. Within months, the Eagles strike oil, and Charley names the colt Black Gold. After the now-rich Charley is hit by a beam at the oil rig, he is forced to walk with a cane. Charley is nonetheless determined to win the Kentucky Derby and arranges for his old friend Buckey to train Black Gold, with Davey as his jockey. One day while training, Buckey's pet goat, Beautiful, crosses Black Gold's path on the racetrack, causing Davey to fall. He is not hurt, but Charley has a heart attack. Charley has often left Sarah unannounced when he has had a yen for the great outdoors, but now he leaves her for good to die alone. She, Davey and Black Gold visit Charley as he camps and hear his last words, "She won." At the Kentucky Derby, Black Gold competes with Toland's favored horse, Corsair, and wins. As Sarah accepts the gold cup from Colonel Caldwell on behalf of all Indians, she repeats her husband's dying words, "She won."