Emerson alumnus goes from arts reporting to horse saving

02/01/08Michael Blowen, '69, gave up a 25-year career as an arts reporter for The Boston Globe to care for retired race horses in Georgetown, Ky. Blowen is the founder and president of Old Friends, the only horse retirement farm in the United States that accepts stallions.

Blowen attended Emerson as a transfer student from 1966 to 1969. He received both his graduate and undergraduate communication degrees in the same year. After graduating, he stayed at Emerson as a member of the faculty until 1976 when he took a job as an arts reporter for The Boston Globe. Blowen said that the Globe ".was the greatest place you could ever work."

Being AN arts reporter was Blowen's life, until one of his editor's, Robert Taylor, convinced Blowen to go to the race track with him.

Blowen fell in love with the horses. Up until his visits to the racetrack, he thought nothing of horses. Blowen said, "I used to throw away Sports Illustrated if there was a horse on the cover. I didn't think they were athletes." But as he kept on visiting race tracks, he began to become attached to the horses. He even got a job at the track from a horse trainer, Carlos Figueroa. There he labored away the horse track from six in the morning until ten, at which time he would go to work at the Globe. Blowen said "There was a shower at the Globe, so I could shower before I went to work."

Blowen became more interested in horses. "I did a few freelance articles on horse racing and a few others for the Globe," he said. Thats when he learned of the mistreatment of the older animals. Blowen said that when a horse couldn't race anymore, it was sent to either a stud farm if it was a stallion (an un-castrated male horse), or the slaughter house.

But in 2002, The Blood-Horse, a horse racing magazine, stated that Ferdinand, a well known and well loved horse was sent to the slaughterhouse after being used as a breeder in Japan. This event inspired Blowen to move to Kentucky and start Old Friends. Old Friends is located in Georgetown, Ky., and is a retirement farm for 28 horses. It is also the only retirement farm in America that accepts stallions.

Blowen is not only the president and founder of Old Friends, but also one of the volunteers that work with the horses. Blowen said, "We rely almost entirely on our volunteers." Old Friends has only one full time employee.