Old Friends thoroughbred retirement facility uses donation from Abercrombie Foundation for new visitors center

GEORGETOWN, Ky, (WTVQ) — The Derby is over, but the love for horses remains ever present, especially for a farm in central Kentucky.
20 years ago Michael Blowen had a vision of giving retired race horses a decent place to spend the rest of their lives, fast forward to the present and Old Friends continues to thrive.
So much so, that recent donations are making a new visitors center a possibility.

“I never envisioned old friends getting this big. I always thought we’d have a few horses in the yard and maybe somebody would come visit them and all of that. But as time went on, uh, there was an increasing need for a place like this because as great as the derby is, you know, they’re all three years old and the race only lasts two minutes and, and they live obviously a lot longer than,” said Michael Blowen, the founder of Old Friends.

What started as a potential dream for Michael Blowen after retirement became a reality that through a time has provided aftercare for retired race horses.

“In my younger days, I was a movie critic at the Boston Globe and I saw the way people were around movie stars and they, they got kind of throw out of it and I was never that way, really much around the movie stars, but I was really that way around race horses, especially the good ones,” he adds.

A vision that was engrained in his mind 20 years ago and to this day, continues to help provide aftercare.
But as his love for horses grew so did the facility so much so they’re now working on revamping an old barn into a new visitor’s center with the help of a friend.

“Ms. Abercrombie’s foundation, the Abercrombie Foundation donated $500,000 toward the, toward the rehabilitation of, of the barn and that’s the reason it’s gonna be a one all the way because of Ms. Abercrombie, and she passed away and she always liked Old Friends. So I think this is a great tribute to her, a great tribute to her affection for the horses and that’s what it all means,” also added Blowen.

The support and passion of Ms Josephine Abercrombie for horses memorialized for decades to come, with the new visitors center.

“She always loved the horses first and that’s what it comes from. I always thought that racing should do a much better job. They try and get people into racing by telling them they might make money or they might win the derby. But the odds of that happening aren’t that great. They should get into the sport because they just enjoy the horses and then whether the horse wins or lose, they’re still loving the horse,”

There will also be display space showcasing a collection of horse-racing memorabilia, artwork, and racing trophies donated to Old Friends by the Bobby Frankel Estate.

Old Friends is located in Georgetown, for more information, click here.