Old Friends, the Thoroughbred retirement farm in Georgetown, Ky., is extremely pleased to announce the arrival of 2008 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Big Brown   for his retirement.

The 19-year old bay stallion arrived at the farm Sept. 27. courtesy of Andy Cohen, managing partner of the Big Brown Syndicate.

Big Brown is the fifth Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner to be retired to Old Friends. The others (and their arrival year) are: Silver Charm  (2014), War Emblem (2015), Charismatic (2016), and I’ll Have Another  (2024).

“We are excited beyond measure to welcome Big Brown as an honored member of the Old Friends family,” said John Nicholson, President and CEO of Old Friends. “We are deeply grateful to Andy Cohen and all of Big Brown’s connections for choosing to share this great horse with racing fans everywhere. I know his legions of fans will love having the chance to visit him throughout the year. Big Brown will be an awesome ambassador, not only for Old Friends, but for the sport of Thoroughbred Racing.”

“It doesn’t seem that long ago when we would visit Big Brown in the middle of the night and just hang out with him,” said Andy Cohen, Managing Partner of the Big Brown Syndicate. “He was like a puppy and especially loved it when the young children would come over to pet him.

“As sweet as he was, when he got on the racetrack he knew it was time to go to work. I remember after his race at Gulfstream Park, Kent Desormeaux said he is the fastest horse I’ve ever ridden and the rest is history.

“After visiting Old Friends and getting to know John Nicholson and Michael Blowen I couldn’t be more comfortable knowing Big Brown will get the love and care he deserves at Old Friends where the horse is the boss.”

Old Friends will be hosting Big Brown’s Barn Bash on Friday, Oct. 18. There will be a lot of fun activities and a chance to meet the guest of honor, Big Brown. More information will be coming soon.
 

This press release has been edited for content and style by BloodHorse Staff.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Kentucky family is hugging their son a little tighter tonight after he got home from Asheville, North Carolina, following the deadly flooding that pushed through the mountain city.

Once the Sajadi family’s son, Will Sajadi, was back in their arms, safe, it was like a breath of relief.

Will attends Asheville School as a junior. He explains how storms began Wednesday night, picking up speed on Thursday. “When you started to see the trees kind of swaying. Then branches started flying off and then as I saw yesterday. A solar panel flew off the roof of one of the buildings.”

As winds picked up speed and flash floods set in, Will lost all contact with his parents as cell towers and power lines were downed. This was all from the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which forced floodwaters into the mountain city.

Will says there was no power, little food, two 16-oz water bottles, and no cell service for three days. Will says the toilets stopped working, and nobody could shower. The only way to make a toilet flush was to dump a bucket of water down it.

The only building on campus with a generator is the student service center. The student center offered food and activities for the students as well as the only building with cell service to contact loved ones. Will explains how the school was not flooded as badly as other areas because it sits on a hilltop. However, nobody had a way in or out of the city, and access to food and clean water was hard to find.

A majority of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee remain flood-striken. Trapping dozens of people within its cities and providing supplies by helicopter. As of Sunday, nearly 30 people have been killed in Asheville from the storm.

“It bothered me that I couldn’t tell them what was going on and that I was okay, but I knew that I was gonna be okay,” said Will.

“Saturday morning when we woke up and we hadn’t heard from him since two and we saw I-40 had collapsed,” recalls Kristin. “I was very nervous. I was ready to just start walking. I was like I don’t care if our car won’t get there, I want to get there.”

By a miracle, a random woman reached out to Kristin to let her know she will attempt to drive to Asheville to pickup her kid and would bring Will home too.

Cell service didn’t return for Will until he was two hours outside of Asheville when he could text his mom, “I’m okay.”

“Sense of relief. Just confirmation we knew he was safe. I don’t want to cry but it was a lot of relief. And stress for the people who aren’t able to get to safety like we were fortunate,” explains Kaveh, Will’s dad, and Kristin.

Both parents thank the school for keeping their son safe and going above and beyond.

Another Kentucky mom, Allison Tucker, whose daughter is still at the University of Asheville, also thanks her daughter’s school for keeping her safe. She says her daughter was able to hunker down with food and water before the storm wiped out everything. Now, one of the biggest issues is a low amount of fuel in the area.

“Having that no communication over that time period. Not knowing, I know she was fine, but not knowing where are you, stay put just trying to get that message to them of stay put do not leave,” explains Tucker.

It’s unclear when the roads and areas will be safe again, but agencies ask that people stay off roads so they can clear them faster.

Asheville School is set to resume classes Sunday, Oct. 6.

There was a feeling of impending dread that swept across Big Blue Nation Friday night when Kentucky revealed that Maxwell Hairston was out against Ole Miss.

Kentucky fans were hopeful Chip Trayanum could add some juice to the Kentucky offense, particularly in the red zone. He was ruled out on Thursday. A day later we learned the Cats would be without their Preseason All-SEC First Team cornerback against the best passing offense in college football.

How were they going to slow down Ole Miss without Hairston? His teammates were ready to rise to the occasion.

“Next man up. We were prepared for this moment,” J.Q. Hardaway said after the game. “We’re confident in everybody in our corner room.”

College football fans have heard “next man up” countless times. This time it wasn’t just lip service.

Hardaway played the best game of his career. The Kentucky defense put Ole Miss in a pretzel. They relied on Tre Harris to move the ball, targeting the nation’s top receiver 15 times. He made his fair share of big plays, taking a fourth-down pass 48 yards for a touchdown, but Hardaway and the Kentucky defense did an excellent job containing the future NFL star.

He had 11 receptions for 176 yards, half of Ole Miss’ total offensive output. A lot of those plays were short hitches on RPOs. Hardaway made a career-high 11 tackles, many of which were in open space, preventing 7-yard gains from turning into 27-yard gains. He also forced a fumble in the red zone, taking points off the board for the Rebels. Hardaway credited Hairston for motivating the secondary to slow down Ole Miss.

“He texted us from the hospital telling us, ‘Man, just continue to work, continue to do what we put in the work for.’ So we really played for Max today. We played for Max and had him in the back of our head,” said Hardaway. “He was our motivation, for sure.”

Ole Miss entered the game averaging 422 passing yards per game and 11.8 yards per attempt. Kentucky held Jaxson Dart to 261 passing yards and 168 of those were on four plays. The Wildcats played for their injured friend and delivered one hell of a performance.

“The defensive staff, the work that they’ve put in, I would really like to single out Chris Collins,” defensive coordinator Brad White said after the top ten win. “To come in this game and be a little bit short-handed out there and to play as well as they did — J.Q. and DJ (Waller) and Terhyon Nichols — all those guys that got in the game. I mean, it was a huge, big group effort.”

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