Farm is refuge for discarded racehorses
Sunday, May 18, 2008
GEORGETOWN, Ky. — He got the e-mail message from a Louisville, Ky., girl two weeks ago, soon after the powerful filly Eight Belles had finished second in the Kentucky Derby and then crumpled into the dirt with two shattered front ankles, an injury so devastating she was euthanized right on the track.
"Her e-mail went something like this," Michael Blowen said:
Extras
"Hello, my name is Lucy Duane. I'm 11 years old. I won money on Eight Belles at a Derby party. I don't feel happy spending it, so I'm going to send it to you. I'm going to go to school and tell the other kids if anyone won money on Eight Belles they should send it to you ... because you love horses."
The death of Eight Belles and the wrenching loss of 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro from a similar injury — coupled with the increasing public knowledge that many retired racehorses end up in slaughterhouses — has spurred emotional debate about the industry's care and treatment of its animals.
That's why a place like Old Friends, a nonprofit, open-to-the-public-for-a-donation thoroughbred retirement facility run by Blowen and his wife, Diane — he a former Boston Globe film critic, she a top columnist at the newspaper — stands out.
The 52-acre farm outside Georgetown, Ky., is home to 30 rescued racehorses — including some Kentucky Derby runners, others who won millions of dollars, many who sired other champions — all of whom get a loving embrace.
That point became clear the other day when the 61-year-old Blowen — talking about his friendship with actor Jack Nicholson — suddenly spotted Williamstown frolicking in a nearby paddock.
When the 18-year-old black stallion — a son of Seattle Slew — flopped into the grass, rolled onto his back and began squirming and flailing his white-splashed legs toward the clear blue sky, the grinning Blowen bellowed:
"Hey Willie, look at you! You got the life. Yes, you do."
A year or so ago, that life was just two days from over. After becoming infertile while standing stud in Iowa, the horse who had held the mile record at Belmont for a decade was sent to the University of Minnesota equine program, where an ill fit resulted in a euthanasia order.
Before the stallion was to be put to death, a compassionate insurance agent handling the case called Blowen.
"When she said it was Williamstown, I said. 'Holy cow! I saw him run at Saratoga,' " he said. "I asked what was wrong, and she said, 'Nothing, except he can't race or breed anymore.'
"When we took him, it literally was like one of those old Warner Brothers movies where the governor calls up, and the condemned man gets a stay of execution."
Unfortunately, many aging racehorses get no such reprieve. With the increased costs of fuel and food, unproductive animals are being cast aside.
The American Veterinary Medical Association estimates more than 100,000 horses are unwanted by their owners. And with 36,000 new thoroughbreds foaled each year, the numbers just keep growing.
Although the last four slaughterhouses for horses in the United States were closed last year, the number of animals now shipped to Mexico for the same fate has doubled. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost 15,000 already have been sent this year.
Taylor's Special earned more than $1 million in his career and won both the 1984 Blue Grass Stakes and Louisiana Derby before running in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
"They found him literally abandoned and starving to death in a field in Washington," Blowen said. "If it weren't for rainwater to drink, he would have been dead. The group that rescued him ran his tattoo number and found out who he was. When we got him, he was a mess — just so wild — but he finally settled in, gained almost 300 pounds and lived a good life here."
Early in his Globe career, Blowen was mentored by an editor who invited him to go to Suffolk Downs one day.
"I fell in love with everything," he said.
Fascinated by the characters at the track, the majestic animals and especially ensnared by the challenges of handicapping a race, he began to spend more time around racing. He wrote freelance stories, wagered regularly and eventually asked trainer Carlos Figueroa if he could work for him so he could learn about horses.
Figueroa agreed, and for a few years Blowen — "I worked for nothing ... but really for everything" — showed up at the track just past dawn, did his chores and then caught the subway into the city and to his job at the Globe.
As the love affair blossomed, he also witnessed some disturbing things:
"After awhile, I also saw the killing trucks show up. They were going to the slaughterhouses. There were times I literally saw duct tape put around a horse's broken leg, just to get him on the truck so he could be sold for $400. And the terrible sounds those horses made — they knew.
"All that stuck in my craw."
Years later, when the Globe offered early buyouts, Blowen and his wife took them and moved to Kentucky, where, while working briefly for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, he fantasized about running his own rescue operation.
"I'm sure people thought I was just this goofy guy with a nutty idea," he said. "But I was willing to take the gamble. Kind of like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. I didn't know what would happen, but at a certain point in life, you realize you only have so many chances, so 'What the hell? Why not jump off the cliff?' "
Creator was a European champion once owned by the crown prince of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who runs the world-acclaimed Godolphin Stable. Sold to Japanese interests, the chestnut stallion stood there until his breeding efforts ended.
"I got an Internet message — and I'm still not sure if it's true — that Creator had been sold to some South Koreans for stallion fights," Blowen said. "I know they were offering only $3,000 for him, which means nothing good was in store, so we bought him for $5,000."
"The great movie director John Huston once told me, 'Look, if you don't have a star and you don't have a story, you don't have a movie,' " said Blowen, who drew on that advice when he borrowed $1 million from a Kentucky bank and other funds from family and friends to launch Old Friends.
For headliners, he would feature stallions, something no other U.S. rescue group was doing:
"They'd been the stars when they raced, but now people said I was crazy, that they'd bite and kick and hurt people. But nothing could be further from the truth. Once we got them and let them be themselves, their whole attitude changed."
As for the story, that developed when the report surfaced in 2003 that Ferdinand — the 1986 Kentucky Derby winner and 1987 Horse of the Year — had been killed in a Japanese slaughterhouse the year before for human consumption.
In 2004, Blowen acquired his first horse, the appropriately named mare Narrow Escape, who had failed to sell at the Fasig-Tipton sale and was donated by her owner.
She was the daughter of Exceller, the million-dollar winner who had beaten Triple Crown champs Seattle Slew and Affirmed in 1978, but 19 years later was killed in a Swedish slaughterhouse.
Saving Narrow Escape, then getting Creator and Sunshine Forever — once America's top turf horse — back from Japan on the heels of the Ferdinand furor met Huston's storyline criteria.
After initially renting stalls and paddock space at other farms, Blowen finally bought Dream Chase Farm and — with the help of several equally dedicated volunteers — launched his operation in full two years ago. He's now negotiating to buy an adjoining 40 acres so he can take on more horses.
"I get calls every day, but we've only got so much room," he said quietly. "And that breaks my heart, because I know what may happen if we can't take them."
Flying Pidgeon was a great turf champion who won more than $1 million in his career.
"They called him the King of Calder," Blowen said. "He's got a race — The Flying Pidgeon Handicap — run there every year in his honor. He's in the track's hall of fame and has a shopping mall named after him.
"But when he got to us he was in terrible shape. He couldn't walk. He'd been kept in a stall, and his muscles had atrophied. He had almost no teeth. But we soaked his alfalfa cubes so he could swallow them; we took care of him, and look at him now. People talk about what it feels like to win the Derby, but the first time this old horse ran again here was unbelievable."
What began as a long-ago interview with Jack Nicholson for a newspaper story has become a longtime friendship.
"His first job in Hollywood was with MGM," Blowen said with a laugh. "It was a cartoon thing. He answered Tom and Jerry's fan mail, and he ran Hanna-Barbera's bets to Santa Anita.
"I sent him a bunch of pictures of our horses, and he sent me back a drawing of Little Silver Charm (the farm's mop-headed miniature horse and mascot) who we got off the killing truck for $40."
Blowen has used that drawing — and ensuing ones by Anjelica Huston and Albert Brooks — for the labels of special edition Old Friends wine. And jockeys Chris McCarron and Jean Cruget each signed 2,600 bottles of Kentucky Ale, whose sales support Old Friends.
While there are some breeders and owners who are cool toward Old Friends — because it stands as a reminder of some racing practices they'd rather not publicize — others have been overly magnanimous.
The latter group includes Jerry and Ann Moss, owners of 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, and especially Madeline Paulsen, owner of many Derby horses, who out of the blue wrote Blowen a check for $65,000 to bring her former Breeders' Cup champ Fraise back from Japan, along with Ogygian — son of the great Damascus and a winter book Kentucky Derby favorite — who was missing his left eye because of a breeding shed accident.
Sadly, eight months after his return, Fraise died suddenly from an abdominal aneurysm. He's now buried alongside four other horses — including hall-of-fame enshrinee Precisionist and Taylor's Special, who was euthanized after a 2006 leg injury — in the small equine cemetery near Blowen's house at Old Friends.
One day Blowen said he wants to be buried there, as well.
In the meantime, he's enjoying life among his old friends, horses such as longtime rivals Awad and Kiri's Clown, who battled each other in the 1995 Sword Dancer Invitational at Saratoga. They now live in adjoining paddocks and still seem to challenge each other.
"I still go to the track (Keeneland) on Sundays," Blowen said. "When the weather's nice, there's nothing I like better on Saturday night than sitting outside here, drinking a beer and going through the Racing Form as I watch Awad and Kiri's Clown snort and romp.
"I remember seeing most of these horses run and now, to have them in my front yard, it's just unbelievable. I can't imagine a better place to be. I just love these animals."
That little Louisville girl — she was right.
Old Friends
What: A 52-acre farm for retired thoroughbreds
Where: Georgetown, Ky. (near Lexington)
Residents: The 30 horses living on the farm include stakes winners and former Kentucky Derby entrants
To visit or help: Tours, conducted nearly every day, are free but donations are accepted. Donations can be made via the Internet or mailed to: Old Friends 1841 Paynes Depot Rd. Georgetown, Ky., 40324
More information: Visit oldfriendsequine.org or call (502) 863-1775.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156
or tarchdeacon@DaytonDailyNews.com.
