A Visit to Old Friends

This morning, the kids and I hustled to be ready to leave by 9:15 to make our 10 am tour of Old Friends, A Kentucky Facility for Retired Thoroughbreds. Brock stayed behind to work.

When we arrived at the facility, we were greeted by a volunteer, Mercer, who was to be our guide. He said we were the only ones who'd confirmed, but that he was expecting a group of 15 girls plus chaperones. We waited a few minutes, browsing the gift shop, until that party arrived and then we set out into the beautiful sunshine to visit the stallions and geldings. Right away, I learned the difference. They are both male horses, but stallions are unaltered and geldings are neutered. We learned that to age a horse you take their age and multiply by 3 and then add 8. Several of the horses that are living out their retirement years at this facility earned millions of dollars for their owners. Some of them come with funds for their care, but most do not, so this non-profit organization relies heavily on donations. They just celebrated their 10th year so they must be doing something right. Some of the horses were rescued from auctions which would have led to slaughter or stallion fights which is a betting sport in Korea or the Philippines. Instead, they get to live out their remaining years at the facility as horses. They don't get groomed. They don't get blanketed in the winter. They just get to eat grass and carrots and run around their paddocks as they please. We were warned that some of them can get a little aggressive, but they were all pretty gentle with us.

Sarava

Afternoon Deelites, belonged to Burt Bacharach and sired Pop Deelites

I forgot this one's name, but he was beautiful and came to the facility from Oregon.

This old guy was 31 years old! He is in his nursing home years now. He was rescued from a slaughter auction and was found to have a broken leg and to be severely emaciated. Old Friends called the vet to have him put down, but the vet bound up the leg and said to give him a few days and he healed so well that he proceeded to put on 350 pounds and grow an inch. He stays in the barn, but is put out in the paddock every day at 4 for some exercise.

Skylar was much more interested in all the barn cats running around the facility than any of the horses. I think he found the horses a little intimidating.

Ogygian

A miniature horse named Little Silver Charm, the smallest stallion on the farm. He was purchased off a slaughterhouse-bound truck for $40 and is more like a pet to the farm's owners. His webpage says, "I like living at Old Friends, surrounded by famous thoroughbreds. They all take orders from me. I am the center of attention, not only because I’m adorable, if I do say so myself, but because I have appointed myself Old Friends’ official spokeshorse for equine rescue."

The boys with Dan the Bluegrass Man

Creator, was owned by the ruler of Abu Dhabi, really beautiful

Special Ring does a trick, shows his tattoo, to earn a treat...

...and receives his reward from Spencer.

Sunshine Forever, very sweet, loved his carrots. His tongue kept coming out of his mouth since he has so many teeth missing. I'd never seen a horse sticking out his tongue and tried not to giggle.

Sky found another kitty to love on.

We all really enjoyed our time at Old Friends. We made a small donation and Brynna bought an outdated calendar to use for posters which contained professional pics of several of the horses we met today.

Once we got back to the trailer, we ate lunch with Brock and the kids played outside for a little while. We spent much of the afternoon on our different electronic devices. I was using my computer to research and reserve campgrounds. Brock was working and pretty much everyone else was playing games.

We had been waiting on some guidance as to what we should do for housing when we get back to Bend and had thought maybe we would just move back into our old driveway for a little while given that the yard needs some attention and our renter was asking to stay a little longer, but right as Brock called the property management company to ask them to change the ad to say it would be available at the end of September, (to give us a little time to decide what to do) they said they had an appointment to show it this afternoon. Then, of course, we received a call that said the family wants to rent it! So we now have some guidance. :O)