At 10 and 11 am Claiborne farms has a free tour. When my sister’s made a reservation for the tour I didn’t know anything about it. Other than we’d see some horses.
Claiborne farms isn’t the easiest to get to…or well, Claiborne farms is easy to get to but it’s huge and the sections of it that guests are allowed on is not. GPS tends to send you in the wrong spot so we ended up having to follow someone who lived there and led us to the correct entrance. You should give them a call if you get lost.
The farm is over 100 years old and has been connected to some pretty famous racing horses. Probably the most famous for non-racing fans would be Secretariat. The farm is a breeding farm and the tour, an hour-long tour, has three points to it. You visit the breeding shed where you’re given an in-depth explanation of how they force the horses to breed and the whole process and why their methods stand out in comparison to others. And then you get to meet some of the stallions who are worth a rather ridiculous amount of money. We met two, Orb and War Front.
The meet and greet with the horses was a chance to feed them peppermints, pet and take a photo. First we visited the barn where Secretariat used to stay and where Orb currently lives and we met Orb and Run Happy. Run Happy wasn’t brought out but visited and given some peppermints by our guide.
We then walked down to another barn where we met War Front whose one of their more expensive horses.
We also got to see Blame who stuck his head out and then his tongue out at us like Run Happy had done.
After meeting the horses we headed to the horse grave which is where Secretariat is buried.
The only money you need to spend at Clairborne is to tip the guide at the end of the trip. We gave a couple of dollars per person. There is also a gift shop with a bathroom in the visitors center. To reserve a spot for a tour call (859) 987-2330 Monday through Friday between 8:30 am and 4:30pm. It’s also best to be at the visitor center at least 5 minutes before the tour starts.
It was interesting to hear about the history of the farm and silly things like how the roosters at the edge of the cemetery are supposedly there because they were a gift that the owners mom didn’t like but couldn’t throw out so she had them put there. And it was cool to see where Secretariat was buried and boarded and to meet the horses but the twenty or more minutes of detailed forced breeding at the start of the tour made me super uncomfortable.