4/6 Left Fort Boonesborough State Park and headed back to Richmond to visit White Hall which was restored by the State of Kentucky during the 1960’s thanks to Governor Dunn’s wife. She was able to restore this big, beautiful home in three years and at the same time restore two other historic homes. This was the home of Cassius Clay the politician and former ambassador to Russia during the 1800’s. It is a 44 room estate house and much of the furniture was given back by their relatives for the restoration. The tour guide we had was excellent and he just took the two of us around at 9 in the morning. He was soooooooooo good that George even gave him a $5 tip – so you know he must have been good.
We left there and stopped for some food shopping and headed up to Paris on the scenic byway. This route has one horse farm after another and many of the farms are those that you hear about on Derby Day! The fences stretch on for miles with so many horses just grazing on that Kentucky Blue Grass that is famous because of the lime which helps to produce some of the best racing horses in the world.
Arrived at Blue Licks Battlefield State Resort Park around 1 and ate a quick lunch before we started to hike up to see the battlefield site, the Inn, and the museum of the history of the area. The museum was very informative about the fights for the Blue Lick Salt Springs and Daniel Boone was a big part of this history. He lost one son here and a nephew in the last revolutionary war battle and then another when the Indians attacked a group he had guided to the springs. The Buffalo Trace goes through here – that’s the trail that they would make going from the springs to other areas for food and shelter. The Trace was used by Indians and those exploring the west. Really nice day again today in the 70’s with the sun out.
4/7 Left this morning for our tour at 11 of Claiborne Farms in Paris, KY where Secretariat retired after his triple crown to become top stud and where he is buried. Very interesting – one needs to call for the tour because they don’t have them everyday and they only take about 20 people at a time. The farm is on 1,300 acres with many houses and 80 full time workers. It has 93 miles of fence alone so they have a full time fence painter. Beautiful piece of property. Our guide who is a groomsman was named Rodeo and he had worked on many farms but has been at this farm the last five years. He took us around the farm showing us the stalls where their top horses live and the signs who lived there before like Secretariat and Bold Ruler. He explained the studding process and fees. Right now their top stud is Pulpit who makes over 6 million a year. He brought out Pulpit and then Blame for the group to pet and have pictures taken and then gave them peppermint candies for a treat. Rodeo explain how violent some of these thoroughbreds are and that they will also try to bite you. They each have their own pasture with a double fence between them so that they don’t fight. Beautiful horses! This tour was great and the farm is top notch – no wonder it takes over 6 million to run the farm per year. He also took us to the cemetery for their top horses (there are 5 total on the property). Secretariat, Bold Ruler, Secretariats parents, Riva Ridge and about 12 others are buried here. Horses are buried generally with only their head, hooves and heart but 5 of them at this cemetery were buried whole. Secretariat is not only buried in one piece – he is the only one that was embalmed. If one remembers how big he was and that at his death they discovered that his heart was 3 times the size of an average horse and that explained his ability to win by 32 lengths at the Belmont. Huge lung capacity!
On we traveled to KY Horse Park State Park where they have a farm, campground and resort. Big campground about 320 sites and we were able to ride our bikes to come in the back road of the Horse Park next door which we had already purchased tickets for our second day here. This park is huge and is laid out in two big circles and primitive sites in the grass near the drive in. Friendly checkin and very informative. There is a store, tennis court, basketball courts, volleyball, Olympic-size swimming pool and two huge restrooms. The farm is a working farm with 115 horses, 80 fulltime workers, 1,224 acres, barns, indoor and outdoor show rings, museums, films and depending when you go horse shows. One needs to check out the calendar because many times the campground is full and the horse park closed for some events like the World Championships. Interesting place!
4/8 - Walked over to the KY Horse Farm State Park today and went through the museums as well as some of the shows that they put on. The Hall of Champions Show they play some of the winning races for about 6 horses that they bring out for show. These are retired champions like Cigar, Funnyside, and Dahoss and can’t remember the others. Then we went to the parade of breeds. There are over 40 breeds living here at the park and they ride some of them into a ring for a show and informational talks. The History of Horse museum has so much information that one needs to spend two or three days to go through the displays. Overwhelming! We spent over 5 hours in the park before heading back to the camper for an early dinner, shower and time to relax. The weather was hot, sunny in the high 80’s. We were in danger of thunderstorms and tornadoes again tonight but the storm went to the east of us. Great day!
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