Kentucky Part One

As I mentioned in a previous post, my Nanny passed away.  She was here with us in Greenville but our family does not do funerals.  Instead we traveled to Nanny's hometown in the heart of the Kentucky Bluegrass.  She is now buried there between the father she adored and my grandpa, her loving husband of 58 years.  No matter how many places she lived in her life, Kentucky was always her home.  So, in her honor, we toured the horse country and bet on the horses for her.  I think she would have loved that.  Our first stop was Berea, the town where my grandparents were married all those years ago.

We ate lunch at the Boone Tavern and then walked the small town and college campus.  It's a very artsy town with shops full of mountain crafts.   

The tulips were absolutely gorgeous, I have never seen such beautiful bulbs.  The redbuds and the dogwoods were blooming too.      

The next day we took a tour of some of the local horse farms.  Kentucky is world renowned for its thoroughbred horses and is one of the top breeding places in the world.  People pay thousands and thousands of dollars in stud fees for the horses we saw.  And, this may be too much info but I found it interesting, there is no artificial insemination or in-vitro in the thoroughbred world.  That means, horses travel from all over the world to physically visit breeding barns like this one.

Our tour guide is a native, a trainer and a horse owner so he could answer any of our questions about horses.  All of the barns were clean and immaculately kept.  These are some prize animals.  This is Henny Hughes, a descendant of Secretariat and a former Triple Crown contender.  His first year in retirement his stud fees were $40,000!   

We were lucky enough to be there during foaling season.  Many of the mares had already delivered and we were able to see them out in the pastures with their babies.  Kentucky is ideally suited for horses with mild weather and miles and miles of pastureland.  It's claim to fame is the limestone water and mineral rich Kentucky bluegrass.  The typical diet of a racehorse is mostly only those two things.      

One of the farms we stopped at encouraged us to pet the horses and really interact with them.  Nanny was always fond of the grays and would consistently bet on them.  She would have loved this horse.   

Tessa loved the foals.  This little guy is only a couple of weeks old.  The farm manager we talked with hadn't slept in days because he had so many horses foaling.  But he only had one pregnant mare left so he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We may well have seen some future champions.

Our tour included drive bys of movie scenes.  This farm, Donamire, is featured in the movie "Dreamer" a heartwarming horse film with Kurt Russell.   

The next day we went to the Kentucky Horse Park, a park devoted to all kinds of horses, not just thoroughbreds.  They host lots of events including Rolex, a huge cross country hunter jumper event.

We were there on a quiet day and, because the weather turned cold, we had the park mostly to ourselves.  Tessa could not wait to ride.  We visited the Children's Barn where kids learned about caring for horses, including how to groom one.  We also took a horse drawn tour of the park and learned more of its history.     

One of the great features of the Kentucky Horse Park, is the Hall of Champions.  We were up close and personal with some celebrities of the horse world including Cigar, Da Hoss, Funny Cide and Go For Gin. 

Even though my mom had lived here and I had visited before it was great to be a tourist, we both learned a lot about the horse business.