After two careers as a top-class racehorse and a high-profile track pony, Lava Man is settling into a new life at the Kentucky equine retirement facility – as Amanda Duckworth reports
USA: A month into official retirement and about to turn 22, Lava Man has seemingly adapted to his new life with ease.
After leading Hot Rod Charlie to the gate in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, the fan favorite headed a few miles up the road to Old Friends, the equine retirement farm at Georgetown, Kentucky.
He has already made friends with Silver Max, who resides in the neighboring paddock, and perhaps most importantly, he is bringing a new generation of horse racing fans to visit Old Friends.
“Lava Man’s figured it out pretty quickly, although if I didn’t have his cookies, I am not sure our relationship would be working so well, so fast,” joked Old Friends founder Michael Blowen.
“He is unbelievable,” Blowen went on. “There was never an anxious moment. He never ran the fence; he never sweated; he never neighed in anxiety.
A little intimidating
“I think his only concern was, ‘How long is it going to take me to teach these guys how to take care of me?’ He is teaching us everything we need to know about him, though. They called him ‘Coach’ at the track because he’s such a great teacher – and he still is.
“You build these things up in your mind because he’s in the Hall of Fame, because he has so many fans, and because he was such an amazing racehorse. It can be a little intimidating.
“But he’s so easygoing, he makes everyone feel easy. He’s so nice, but he does like to be the boss. He told me the other day in his non-verbal way that no one was coming here to see me, they were coming here to see him. After all, what Hall of Fame am I in?”
Lava Man, who was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2015, raced for seven years, going from claimer to Hall of Famer during a career that included three victories in the Hollywood Gold Cup, two in the Santa Anita Handicap, and one in the Pacific Classic.
By the time he was retired, after making 47 starts, he had earned more than $5.2 million, in the process building a legion of fans. The hugely popular gelding raced for the final time in 2009, and although Old Friends was named as his eventual home, he had a second career ahead of him first.
“Silver Charm was the first Hall of Famer to come here, and it means everything to have a second one,” said Blowen. “I’ve really been looking forward to it. The fact of the matter is when Lava Man first retired off the track, Jason Wood called and asked if I wanted him.
‘I went nuts’
“I went nuts because at the time we didn’t have Silver Charm, and we didn’t have anyone as famous as him. I knew Lava Man had a huge fan base, and I adored him. Then his trainer, Doug O’Neill, decided to make him a track pony first, and I wasn’t sure that would work, but of course I was totally wrong. It worked great, and he’s even more popular now than he was then.
“One of the things I have really learned is how individual they all are,” Blowen added. “They all want and need different things. They all have such great personalities. When you are just betting them, they are simply speed figures and numbers, and you are just hoping they run. When you get to see them up close, you learn who they are.”
Lava Man currently resides in the main barn at Old Friends, and his stall comes with direct access to a paddock from his back door. He fills most his days visiting with fans and living the life of a pampered horse. He has become friends with his neighbor Silver Max – best known for upsetting Hall of Famer Wise Dan in the 2013 Shadwell Turf Mile – and they can often be found racing each other along their respective fence lines.
“If Lava Man doesn’t like it outside, he can go back inside as he pleases,” said Blowen. “He loves being out though, and he loves rolling in the mud. He’s adjusted to everything everyone has ever asked him to do. When I retired, I had to make adjustments, everyone makes adjustments, but he seems content. He loves Silver Max. I love how they bonded and how much they love to play. There is no neighing in aggression or an ‘I am the boss’ attitude. It’s very much ‘Let’s just have some fun and play.’ ”
Directly across from Lava Man’s paddock, an almost white stallion is usually unbothered by the antics of his younger compatriots and is content to graze, while keeping an eye out for any incoming treats.
Silver Charm, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007, is the oldest living Kentucky Derby winner; he was retired to Old Friends eight years ago after a stallion career in Japan.
Since his arrival, Silver Charm has been the undisputed king of Old Friends, but Lava Man has certainly caught the imagination of a younger generation of racing fans. Even if they did not follow him during his racing career, they came to know Lava Man in his second.
“He has a different fan base than Silver Charm,” said Blowen. “It’s a younger group. His team gave us his ‘I Am Lava Man’ website so we can keep his fans updated. He has so many fans, and Doug and his team were so great about letting them know where he was and what he was doing. Of course, then there is the connection with Hot Rod Charlie and all the other top-class racehorses he coached on the track.
“Lava Man is so smart. He knows he’s the boss. The good ones are all smart. We don’t have a single horse here who was good on the track who isn’t smart. It all manifests in different ways, of course. We all know how War Emblem was. He was probably too smart.”
Blowen is adamant that when a horse retires to Old Friends, they no longer have to do anything they do not want to do, outside of what is required to maintain good health. For instance, horses who enjoy visitors have prominent paddocks on the farm, while the ones who require a slower pace are not as close to the action. Old Friends gets about 20,000 visitors a year from around the world.
‘No treats, please’
Happily, Lava Man seems to love the attention. The farm hosted a free welcome party two days after Thanks
giving, and hundreds of people turned up from all across the country. Another is being planned for this spring. His fans have been so generous in the amount of treats they send him – including his favorite Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses – that his stall sports a ‘No treats, please’ sign as a way to control how much he is given.
“Lava Man can have treats, and he gets plenty of them, but if we gave him all the treats people want to give him every day, it would be bad,” explained Blowen. “We are just regulating what he’s getting. Eventually, we also want him to have a paddock buddy. We want to make sure he has completely settled in first though.
“It’s an art finding the right paddock mate. Special Ring didn’t get along with anyone until he met Popcorn Deelites, who was one of the stars of Seabiscuit, and they were best friends for years.
“Then, when Popcorn Deelites died, he was totally inconsolable. At night he would cry out for his friend. It was terrible. We tried to pair him with another horse, and he hated him. We had to take him back out immediately. Then, we put Patch – our one-eyed horse who ran in the 2017 Kentucky Derby – in with him, and they have become friends.”
Blowen, a former movie critic for the Boston Globe, started Old Friends in 2003. He wanted to provide a dignified retirement to Thoroughbreds whose racing and breeding careers had come to end, with a special eye toward stallions, as they require more individual space and management than geldings and mares.
What started with a leased paddock and a single horse as evolved over the decades, and now Old Friends operate
s off of its main 236-acre farm, along with three satellite locations, and cares for a herd of over 240 retired former racehorses and breeding stallions. In 2014, Old Friends was given a Special Eclipse Award, in acknowledgment of its extraordinary service to the sport of Thoroughbred racing.
Two Elvises
Old Friends is certainly home to a number of notable names now. Lava Man joins a roster that also currently includes four Belmont Stakes winners (Birdstone, Ruler On Ice, Sarava, and Touch Gold) and five Breeders’ Cup winners (Amazombie, Eldaafer, Little Mike, Stormy Liberal, and Work All Week).
“People trust us now,” said Blowen. “Twenty years ago, I was a guy who knew how to bet but didn’t know anything about taking care of horses. I tell people when they come to the farm now that this proves if you have a good idea, no matter how bad you personally are at it, if you keep at it and work with the right people, eventually it will work.
“I had a good idea, and now Silver Charm and Lava Man are in my backyard. I wouldn’t trade places with anyone on the entire planet.
“It’s huge having big names like that here. Suppose you went to Graceland, and you found out Elvis never lived there? It would just be another house. No one would go.
“Now we have at least two Elvises, not to mention four Belmont winners and five Breeders’ Cup winners. It’s fabulous that not only do their fans get to spend time with them, but with their popularity, they can help the ones who weren’t as talented or lucky.”
• Visit the Old Friends website
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