Kentucky Horse Park is a working horse farm and an educational theme park opened in 1978 in Lexington, Kentucky. It is located off Kentucky State Highway 1973 (Iron Works Pike) and Interstate 75 in northern Fayette County in the United States. The equestrian facility is a 1,224-acre (4.95 km2) park dedicated to "man's relationship with the horse." Open to the public, the Park has a twice daily Parade of Breeds, showcasing both common and rare horses from across the globe. The horses are ridden in authentic costume. Each year the park is host to a number of special events and horse shows.
Beginning with the 1979 arrival of Forego, one of the leading handicap horses of the 1970s, the Kentucky Horse Park has been a retirement home for some of the world's greatest competition horses. The status of the park as a retirement center was further established with the 1985 arrival of John Henry, Horse of the Decade for the 1980s and the top money-winning thoroughbred gelding in racing history. With the exception of a few months in 1986, John Henry lived at the park until his death in 2007, alongside other racing greats such as Forego and his fellow 1970s champion Bold Forbes, and current residents Cigar, voted Horse of the Decade for the 1990s, and Da Hoss, the first of only two thoroughbreds to win Breeders' Cup races in non-consecutive years. In late 2008, the champions Alysheba and Funny Cide became residents, but Alysheba died at the park in March 2009.
Besides thoroughbred horses, standardbred greats such as Western Dreamer, Cam Fella and Rambling Willie have made the Kentucky Horse Park their home, as well as 5-gaited Saddlebred gelding CH Gypsy Supreme and late champions CH Imperator and CH Sky Watch.
Read more about Kentucky Horse Park: Park Sculptures, National Horse Center, 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, Administration, Thou Shalt Fly Without Wings: A Celebration of The Horse
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“If this bureau had a prayer for use around horse parks, it would go something like this: Lead us not among bleeding-hearts to whom horses are cute or sweet or adorable, and deliver us from horse-lovers. Amen.... With that established, let’s talk about the death of Seabiscuit the other night. It isn’t mawkish to say, there was a racehorse, a horse that gave race fans as much pleasure as any that ever lived and one that will be remembered as long and as warmly.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
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—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly.... Free labor insists on universal education.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
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—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)