August 19, 2014

Paradigm Farms Horse Retirement

I want to share one of my favorite blogs tonight, Paradigm Farms Horse Retirement.


Every post the farm owners put up just bring a smile to my face.  The owners treat every horse with individualized care and the utmost dignity, and they always end every blog post with pictures of all the retirees doing retiree things that day - playing, eating, sleeping, grooming each other, running through big fields of grass.  Can you imagine being one of those horses' owners and seeing that?  I would love it.

Retirees doing retiree things - thankfully, since that would be hard to clean up for a show!

One of my favorite things is the way they immortalize the horses that have passed on.  With photos, they retell the horse's life story, and the story of the people who loved them.  While a horse passing can't be made any easier for those that loved him, especially if you're several states away, this beautiful time capsule certainly has to mean a lot.

Today they sadly had to post about Noble's passing, an OTTB who did H/J with his owner, who had him for 14 years before retiring him to spend what would be his last 4 years at Paradigm.

Noble and his owner

Since I know a lot of you guys, and myself, have a soft spot for both OTTBs and retirees, I wanted to share this post.  Go take a look at Noble's beautiful memorial post, and start following Paradigm if you aren't already.  I guarantee that photos of sleek, happy retirees playing bingo and shuffleboard playing halter tag and grazing in formation will bring a smile to your face every time they post a new post.


Every old man should be allowed to live out his days in such an awesome place!

10 comments:

  1. Just beautiful! Weirdly, this place is about 15 miles away from where I grew up and my parents still live; I'll have to go visit next time I'm home!

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    1. How cool! That's awesome. They seem to be great people, I don't think they are from around there. The husband is Canadian. Definitely blog about it if you go!

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  2. That so sweet, but I don't think my heart could take it :'(

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    1. I know, I thought of you constantly as I wrote this. I'm sorry. :( It is one of my favorite blogs though.

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  3. I'm with L, it's just too sad. I couldn't read that regularly even though they are wonderful tributes!

    I love the idea of retirement farms but I'm unsure how people can stand not seeing their horses frequently? I feel like that's the thing that would stop me since there aren't any local to me.

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    1. It makes a lot more sense to me after my mom's childhood friend, who lives in Chicago, retired her heart horse to a retirement farm in Kentucky. She visits him every month, and the people that take care of him are amazing, and he always comes cantering across the field when he hears her voice. It didn't make sense to retire him at the no-turnout facility in Chicago where she kept him, where the board was more than her mortgage (par for the course in that part of the country). He's much happier at the farm in Kentucky.

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    2. Okay that makes some more sense. I forget that not every part of the country is like mine with the open space. My boys could live in my back yard on 7 acres if needed (and the barn ever got fixed up, lol).
      Every once in a while I think I would love to board a couple retirees at home, but it has to be a very emotional job at times.

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  4. That's absolutely amazing. Thanks so much for sharing.

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  5. thanks for sharing - some of these retirement farms are such special places

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  6. This place is restoring my faith in people, and the joy and pride the put into their retirees is so perfect. Thank you for sharing!

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