Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Featured Farm: Airdrie Stud
In the woodland glades and verdant pastures that are Airdrie Stud, the notion of walking on hallowed ground is striking and real. The horse industry virtually began here. Airdrie stands on a portion of the fabled Woodburn Farm where Robert Aitcheson Alexander envisioned the role the Bluegrass was to play in a newly emerging commercial horse industry, following the Civil War.
Decades earlier, Bluegrass Kentucky already had won its reputation as the cradle of the nation’s Thoroughbred; Alexander, owner of Woodburn, would save and enhance Kentucky’s role at a critical turn as the nation embarked down new paths.
Alexander took what had been a hobby of the antebellum gentry class into the new realm of the business world, organizing his stud farm on a model of efficiency. Alexander understood record-keeping and marketing concepts when others had not. He played a key role in saving Kentucky’s claim as the nation’s horse-breeding capital at a time when this notion no longer rested secure.
In modern times, it is no small accident of history that the present owners of Airdrie, former Kentucky Governor Brereton C. Jones and his wife, Elizabeth (Libby) Jones (both on right in photo), have worked tirelessly to preserve Kentucky’s renown as the race horse capital of the world.
Continue Reading....Featured Farm: Airdrie Stud
Written by Maryjean Wall
Visit Maryjean Wall's new site at "Celebrating the Horse"
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