GEORGETOWN, Ky. — Michael Blowen can step outside his house any day of the week and visit retired racehorses at , the thoroughbred retirement farm he founded in Kentucky two decades ago that attentively cares for former winners and losers alike.
Blowen, a former Boston Globe film critic, started Old Friends in 2003 with a leased paddock and one horse. He was just getting started when news broke that 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand had reportedly died in a slaughterhouse in Japan. Silver Charm has lived at Old Friends for nearly a decade. Attention paid to the 30-year-old Hall of Fame racehorse has come to symbolize the care thoroughbreds deserve in their golden years, long after running their last race or producing their last foal, said Old Friends CEO John Nicholson.
Silver Charm, right, with Jockey Gary Stevens aboard, noses out Captain Bodgit to win the 123rd Kentucky Derby horse race.