Foolishly forcing a horse to jump a stone wall in a Corfu field, Sisi makes a bad fall and may remain paraplegic. The news is too much for her father, duke Max, who suffers a fatal heart attack. Franz decided against telling her while recovery was uncertain, so she missed the funeral, with king Ludwig of Bavaria barging in during firstborn Louis's eulogy. She insists to head there, only to learn Max hasn't had opportunity to tell his wife Louis plans to wed a bourgeois opera star. An unexpected French nobleman also attends at Possenhofen, but to reclaim the castle which once belonged to his family as Max lost it gambling on a horse race, and he refuses to sell it back. Sisi schemes to win it back riding Max's best Arabian.