Touring Claiborne Farm, The Resting Place Of Secretariat In Paris, Kentucky

The final stop on my horse tour of Kentucky is where the life of a race horse begins and, for some of the greats, ends – Claiborne Farm.

Claiborne Farm is about 30 minutes outside of Lexington, KY and is home to some of the greatest horses for breeding and the resting place of Secretariat, arguably the greatest race horse of all time.

Claiborne Farm covers over 3,000 acres, but it started with only 1,300 acres over 100 years ago. It now has 11 active stallions and 35 barns. This year, provided the last holdout (as of my visit on May 20, 2019) was born and stood up, Claiborne Farm will have had 151 standing foals.

Speaking of foals… let’s talk about the real action at Claiborne. The breeding shed is still original from the 1920’s. Six out of 13 Triple Crown winners were conceived in that shed. Horse racing still requires breeding to happen (mostly) the old-fashioned way. This means no artificial insemination – it’s all natural – but unless you have 4 people who help you in the bedroom and run tests on the semen for sperm count (and more), that’s about it for the old-fashioned way.

Racing stallions aren’t just fast on the race course it seems; four mares were bred the morning I toured in approximately 22 minutes.

We got to meet some of the studs at Claiborne Farm. They each had a personality as big as their… uh… faces.

First up was Runhappy – the 2015 Breeders Cup Sprint Winner. He has an estimated value of $11,000,000. Beautiful and sweet, we were able to pet him and get pictures.

When a horse stays in the same stall for their entire tenure at Claiborne Farm, their name plate remains on the stall and the newest resident’s name plate goes at the top. Runhappy has some big horse shoes to fill, having his name on the stall that housed Secretariat and Bold Ruler during their time at Claiborne.

Here is the name plate for the stable currently housing Orb, but previously housing Round Table – the World’s Largest Money Winner.

We then visited some of the other stallions in the barn. Some were just for viewing and some for feeding peppermints. Race horses, as with other horses I’ve heard, love peppermints.

It was then time for the current star of the farm – War Front. He’s the sire of War of Will who was a part of the 145th Kentucky Derby controversy and winner of the 2019 Preakness Stakes. War Front was gorgeous, sleek and soft. He was friendly enough not only for pets, but for hugs!

Everyone was smelling him. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to smell; not being a horse person, he smelled to me like… clean horse. But, when in Rome (roam!?), sniff the horse.

A side note: if you – like me – are concerned about the size of the stalls, the stallions are only in there before and after breeding. They spend 16+ hours a day out in the paddock.

At the end of the stallion portion of the tour, we came to my favorite horse of the day – Blame.

He was so cute with his peppermint routine. He LOVES peppermint. Rather than crunching it up, he savors it by biting his peppermint in half and placing part of it under his front lip. Then he slurps up some water and sloshes it around while he sucks on his treat. He then stares at you with his tongue out while he enjoys every moment of his tour time.

Our tour was finally coming to a close, but there was still one place to see, a place that’s one of the main reasons people make the trip to Claiborne Farm. To see the resting place of Secretariat who won the Triple Crown when he was 3 and won the Belmont Stakes that year by 31 lengths.

Secretariat is buried in one of the cemeteries close to the offices. Horses are normally cremated and only their head, heart and hooves (which are said to represent the body, heart and soul) are buried.

There are five horses buried whole in the cemetery that holds Secretariat which is incredibly rare, although it became a more common practice at Claiborne in the 1980s.

Secretariat, Mr. Prospector, Round Table, Nijinsky and Swale are all buried whole. Even more rare than being buried whole, Secretariat and Man O’ War were both embalmed as well.

Swale is remembered for being very young. He’d won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes in his third year. He had a normal training run and was being hot-walked (cooled down) to head to his bath and he sat down, laid down and died of a heart attack in just two minutes.

This was a bittersweet end to the Claiborne Farm tour. We had an excellent tour guide in Kevin. He was funny and informative. The cost for the tour was $20 per person, so I went alone keeping our budget in mind. It was costly, but if you’re a horse person – or become interested in the whole industry of horse racing like I did while in Kentucky – it’s worth the visit.

Address

Claiborne Farm, 703 Winchester Rd, Paris, KY 40361