We should have planned better, anyone know of a tb farm we can visit this weekend that is open for tours?
Probably open - Old Friends - reitirement home for wonderful horses and deserving of their retirement. Lovely people, lovely horses, lovely stories, including Popcorn Delight who acted as Seabiscuit.
If you take one of the tours, like Bluegrass Tours, they would probably run on Saturday or Sunday.
Keeneland started its fall race meet yesterday. That can be a fun outing.
Winstar
You can go to Winstar… and it is for free. The day we went we saw two of the stallions, and they were super, super nice. Very impressive facility.
Darley was free also. Owned by Sheikh Muhammad al-Maktoum and his wife, Princess Haya, is head of the FEI.
Most of the tour groups were booked up when we were there, too, but Darley had spots. Most stallions are in the Southern Hemisphere breeding, but some were there.
We did several tours through 2 different companies. While enjoyable and interesting, it was a bit pricey (e.g. $45/one farm for 20 minutes).
I can highly recommend going to Old Friends. We did that on our way back to the airport. It was a two hour walking tour with an excellent volunteer “Charlie Brown” who provided lots of information on the walk. Gulch is there. All they ask is for a $5 donation per person for the tour. Please feel free to make a larger donation, it is for a good cause (and deductible). My friend and I decided it was one of the highlights of our visit.
Thanks everyone. We tried calling winstar but nonreply, guess we could have tried just arriving. We went to keeneland, it was great, wandered round the barns, then got a seat in the grandstand and watched the firts few races. Actually won money! ($4!). Then went to watch finalnfour tonight. Fun day.
[QUOTE=dogbluehorse;5148534]
Thanks everyone. We tried calling winstar but nonreply, guess we could have tried just arriving. We went to keeneland, it was great, wandered round the barns, then got a seat in the grandstand and watched the firts few races. Actually won money! ($4!). Then went to watch finalnfour tonight. Fun day.[/QUOTE]
Just arriving is a big no-no in the Thoroughbred industry.
Calling ahead of time is the best way to do it, usually you can’t get same day tours.
