Sonny Steele (Robert Redford) is a former world-champion cowboy who has been reduced to selling breakfast food in a suit studded with flashing lights. Hallie Martin (Jane Fonda) is a chic, sharp member of the electronic media, a TV newswoman who will do anything to get a good story. When Sonny rides out of a Las Vegas casino into the desert astride his sponsor's living symbol, a multi-million dollar racehorse, Hallie is determined to discover why. She stays one step ahead of a posse of pursuing police forming an unlikely bond with both the cowboy and his convictions.