Old Friends Equine
Near Lexington, Kentucky
Michael Blowen spent years as a film critic for the Boston Globe before a mid-life pivot brought him to Georgetown, Kentucky, in two thousand three with a theory: if people go star-struck meeting movie celebrities, they might feel the same way meeting famous racehorses. He started Old Friends Equine with a leased paddock, a miniature horse, and two other animals.
The farm has grown into a two hundred thirty-six-acre sanctuary caring for more than two hundred retired thoroughbreds, including around twenty stallions, a population no other retirement facility in the country regularly accepts. Champion horses who once ran at Churchill Downs and Saratoga now spend their days grazing a few miles east of Lexington. Thousands of visitors come each year to walk the paddocks and meet animals whose names they remember from race-day broadcasts. It is one of the more unexpected institutions in the Bluegrass.
