Former movie critic Michael Blowen founded the well-known equine retirement facility 20 years ago just outside Lexington, Kentucky. Old Friends is now home to more than 250 horses in various locations, including a new offshoot in Japan – as he tells Amanda Duckworth
Twenty years ago, Michael Blowen started Old Friends via a leased paddock and a single Thoroughbred. A retired film critic for the Boston Globe, Blowen knew his concept was a good one, although he faced his share of doubters. Now, the equine retirement facility is a poster child for racehorse aftercare and has a herd of over 250 horses in multiple locations.
Viewed as a living history museum, Old Friends is currently home to multiple champions as well as plenty of horses who rarely, if ever, found the winner’s circle. The main farm attracts around 20,000 visitors annually, and it turns out that Blowen was right—people love to meet their equine heroes.
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“I never lacked faith, no matter if it was misguided or inexperienced, that this could work if we could just hang on long enough,” said Blowen. “I always thought that I know I am a nut, but I can’t be the only one. There have to be other people who think it would be really cool to come feed carrots to these great athletes.
‘All great horses to me’
“I knew that people were that way around movie stars, and that’s how I was around these horses. Everything was obvious to me, but I guess it wasn’t obvious to everybody else. I don’t get satisfaction in knowing I was correct, but I get a lot of satisfaction knowing I can look out my window and see all of these great horses. They are all great horses to me. Some of them were very successful, and some weren’t, but they are all great.”
Dream Chase Farm in Georgetown, Kentucky, opened in 2006 and serves as the main facility for Old Friends. Located near both the Kentucky Horse Park and Keeneland, it is home to more than 150 former racehorses and stallions. Current favorites include Silver Charm, who is the oldest living Kentucky Derby winner, as well as fellow Hall of Famer Lava Man.
The farm is open for tours, and offers different types depending on the experience visitors want. Other headliners include four winners of the Belmont Stakes in Touch Gold, Sarava, Birdstone, and Ruler On Ice as well as Breeders’ Cup champions Little Mike, Amazombie, Eldaafer, Stormy Liberal, and Work All Week, plus three-time Santa Anita Handicap winner Game On Dude.
Big names such as those help support horses who weren’t as talented but still require a soft place to land. While the fancy horses draw in the crowds, that is no guarantee that they will be the ones visitors connect with.
‘It’s not always the famous ones’
“One of the ways we raise money is to sell shares in the horses for $100,” explained Blowen. “Some of the requests we get are for horses we don’t even have a picture of yet. We have to go get a picture and make up the certificate because on a tour they fell in love with this horse.
“You never know which of the horses someone is going to fall in love with. It’s not always the famous ones.”
Beyond the main farm, there is also Old Friends at Cabin Creek: the Bobby Frankel Division, located in New York, just a few minutes from Saratoga Race Course. It opened in 2009 and among others is home to Commentator, the two-time Whitney Handicap winner, and Naughty New Yorker, the 2007 New York-bred Horse of the Year.
In 2020, Old Friends at Ashton Grove, also located in Kentucky, opened so residents of the Ashton Grove Senior Living Community could bond with 13 Old Friends retirees on land that was once opened and operated Hill ‘N’ Dale Farms. Furthermore, there is also now an Old Friends Japan.
“The advice I have is don’t be afraid to steal someone else’s really good idea,” said Blowen. “This is totally based on stolen property. I stole the name from Barbara Livingston and her beautiful books, and I stole the idea from the Kentucky Horse Park.
‘You have to be serious’
“They were doing it there, with their Hall of Champions, but I wondered what would happen if you put a whole bunch of them together. The one thing you have to make sure of is that the horse is at the center of it. That can’t be a saying. You have to be serious. You have to do what’s right for the horse.”
One of the unique elements of Old Friends is that it is set up to welcome home stallions who have been pensioned abroad. It started with Sunshine Forever and Creator, who both arrived from Japan in 2004, and the most recent stallion to come back is Any Given Saturday, who returned from South Korea in March.
In 2014, Blowen and Old Friends received a Special Eclipse Award, an industry accolade honoring extraordinary service to the sport of Thoroughbred racing. The facility is accredited by the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA), and it routinely gets national news coverage, including features done by the likes of CBS Sunday Morning and Southern Living.
In March this year, it was announced the Josephine Abercrombie Pin Oak Foundation would match up to $750,000 in donations for a new, state-of-the-art visitor center to be called The Ms. Josephine Abercrombie Center at Old Friends.
The structure, a renovation of an old tobacco barn, is almost complete and is named in honor of the horsewoman, philanthropist, and late owner of the renowned Pin Oak Stud.
In short, 20 years on, the industry believes in Old Friends as much as Blowen did from the start. “I feel good about it, but I also understand so much more now the original reactions I got,” said Blowen.
“My favorite original reaction came from Governor Jones at Airdrie Stud. I went over there to see him, and I explained the idea. I told him that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I needed people like him to give me advice.
‘What exactly what are you going to do with these horses?’
“He said, ‘Well, let me get this straight … you are going to get these horses, and you are going to bring some of them home from Japan, and when you get these old horses, you aren’t going to race them, sell them, or breed them?’ He looked at me with this very curious look on his face and said, ‘What exactly what are you going to do with these horses?’”
To this day, Blowen still remembers Jones staring at him like he was from Mars as he explained the horses would live in his backyard and people would come to visit them and give them carrots.
“I couldn’t believe his reaction because I thought he was going to say, ‘Boy that’s a great idea!’ but he didn’t,” said Blowen. “But he did reach into a drawer, pull out an old tattered checkbook, and write Old Friends a check for $5,000. It was the first big check we ever got.
“He handed it to me and he said, ‘Good luck.’ He became one of our biggest supporters, and we ended up retiring two of the stallions that were actually there the day I was there in You And I and Afternoon Deelites.”
These days, Blowen jokes that he is primarily in charge of chopping carrots and leaving his expert team to do their jobs without interference. Additionally, multiple organizations donate or discount services to provide for the animals, from Mississippi State’s veterinary program to the Kentucky Horseshoeing School to Rood and Riddle, just to name a few.
“The less I do in terms of actually running it, the better it works,” said Blowen. The people we hired and who work and volunteer here all know how to do it better than me. We have so many people who help. It is a way for everyone to contribute to the welfare of these animals, and it’s just fabulous.”
One of Blowen’s favorite parts of Old Friends is listening to the stories of those who visit and why they decided to do so. He fondly remembers a polite elderly lady who faithfully visited every year and a half and donated $500 and carrots each time she came.
Then one day, her estate contacted Old Friends because she had left $300,000 to the farm. Other times, it is industry people who are moved.
“I love the people telling me their stories of why they came here,” said Blowen. “One of the guys who own Mage came up to me at the Preakness. I said congratulations on your horse, and he goes, ‘Oh, I know you. I have been to your farm a bunch of times.’ I asked him why, and he said it was because he loved Afternoon Deelites. It was amazing to me he had been here.
‘I know the great – and the not-so-great’
“I get to meet the most amazing people. After all these years, I know all the great people in horse racing, and I know the people who aren’t so great.
“I know the ones who are just in it for the money, and I know the ones who adore these animals and will do anything for them.”
Blowen first fell in love with horses via his love of gambling. Although both he and his wife, Diane White, had remarkable careers at the Boston Globe, this second act has had its own profound effect.
“I may be the only person in the United States who is in the exact spot they should be in,” Blowen said. “When I am not here, it is like going under water and not having your air tank. I am lost, and I have to hurry back here. When I first started this, someone told me not to fall in love with the horses. I said what do you mean? The whole sport is about falling in love with the horses, it’s the whole point.
“I tell people all the time that racing doesn’t sell the joy of it. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but being in the game is the fun of it. Diane and I fell off the cliff, but jumping off the cliff was fun.
“If it wasn’t for the gambling and drinking, I never would’ve gotten into it because all I knew about horses was that they were big, and I was afraid of them. Now they are in my backyard.”
• Visit the Old Friends Equine website
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