You will love the Kentucky Horse Park. Everyone does. Because the Kentucky Horse Park is the way that horses are supposed to live. It’s horse heaven on earth.
It’s like Disneyland, with horses. Reality is on the other side of the white board fences. Inside the gates, everything is perfect, and the horses come first. Just like in the new Alltech commercial for the Games. The picture it paints of the ideal, caring nuclear family does exist but we all know much more about the other reality–girls from broken homes, horses warehoused in boarding barns until divorces are settled, and disappointed riders whose parents don’t make it to their shows or take an interest in their horse activities. Girls who turn to horses because no one in their families has time for or interest in them. Girls who work in stables so they’ll have someone to talk to: the horses.
Whenever I look around the Horse Park grounds and see young girls with adults who have taken an interest in them and brought them to this fantastic event, I’ll think to myself, “Now there’s another lucky girl.”
I think that is what people must have thought one day many years ago when they saw me. One of my mother’s friends thought I should go to Boston with her for a special day. We went to the old Boston Garden and I saw the Spanish Riding School of Vienna perform. I was thirteen years old. I remember being speechless with wonder for days and my gratitude to that woman is eternal. I think often that she could have taken anyone in the world: why did she think to take a young girl like me? Did she know that performance would have such an impact on me?
Did you know that if you buy a ticket for a day grounds-only pass to the Games, you can bring a child aged 12 or under with you at no charge? You can take in the trade show, all the breed and training and sport demos, and go through the pavilions, where there will be so much to see, as well as the wonderful Horse Park exhibits that are open. And you just might make all the difference in someone’s life. Just ask me.
