APPARENTLY, "Racing Stripes is the official film of Red Nose Day 2005" which, on the face of it, might seem as damning as some luckless feature getting the dubious honour of being nominated as a Royal film.

Then there's the fearsome credit "featuring new songs performed by Sting and Bryan Adams". But this is actually nowhere near as bad as those credits might make you fear, and is, in fact, a genuinely entertaining, albeit decidedly predictable, family film.

In the middle of a raging thunderstorm, a travelling circus accidentally leaves behind a baby zebra (voiced by Malcolm In The Middle's Frankie Muniz). The gangly little foal is rescued by retired thoroughbred racehorse trainer Nolan Walsh (Bruce Greenwood), the widowed father of Channing (Hayden Panettiere).

The horse-racing obsessed youngster calls the little zebra Stripes and he is soon introduced to the farm's misfit troupe of barnyard residents, including the grumpy Shetland pony Tucker (voiced by Dustin Hoffman), the wise old goat Franny (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg), the mobster pelican-on-the-run Goose (Joe Pantoliano), and the inappropriately-named bloodhound Lightning (Snoop Dogg).

Unaware that he's a not a true thoroughbred, Stripes has a burning ambition to become a championship racehorse and, as it so happens, Channing longs to train as a jockey. But her overprotective father refuses to let her participate in the potentially dangerous sport and the racehorses on the neighbouring farm, run by Nolan's cold-hearted former boss Clara Dalrymple (Wendie Malick), ridicule the ambitions of their little, striped rival.

That is until down-at-heel racing pundit Woodzie (M. Emmett Walsh) spots Stripes' potential and comes out of retirement to train Stripes and his owner for the prestigious Kentucky Open.

In between the predictable sentimentality, there are some genuinely funny lines, mostly from the manic horsefly duo Buzz (Steve Harvey) and Scuzz (David Spade), and anyone looking for an undemanding family entertainment film could certainly do worse than taking a punt on Racing Stripes.
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