If you are visiting Kentucky the "Blue Grass State" or traveling through, I think you will be shortchanged if you do not take time to visit the Kentucky Horse Park on the Iron Works Pike in Lexington.

In 1971 someone dreamed of a horse park in Kentucky but not until 1972 did the state become interested to put up the money for 963 acres of the Old Walnut Farms. No state has more picturesque scenery than this location.

The Horse Park, along Interstate 75, is one of the main attractions of our state. It is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5.95 for adults and $2.50 for children 6 years or older.

There you will see the life size bronze statue of Man O' War. The famous Thoroughbred is buried beneath the monument. It is told he lost only one race in his entire career. There are walking tours - or if you prefer, you may rent a horse drawn carriage to view the park.

It is the only park in the world, or maybe I should say nation, dedicated to man's relationship with horses. Arabian and Thoroughbreds are all honored here.

A horse museum has been added since the park opened. There you will see the past embracing the future. The artifacts include saddles and a physician's buggy used about the time of the Civil War.

There is also a Horse Museum at Churchill Downs, with all the Derby winners posted.

In traveling some of the backroads of Kentucky, occasionally we find a farmer who has converted part of his barn into a blacksmith shop to shoe his horses and those of his neighbors for extra income. There you see red-hot iron sizzling on the anvil to be hammered into a horseshoe and tossed into a tub of water.

The wilderness seems to depend on some of these roads, but doesn't loose its natural allure of beauty.

I was privileged to attend "Down Home Days" in Big Spring, Ky. located in Meade, Hardin and Breckinridge Co., eight miles from Ft. Knox. To see and hear the Ft. Knox Army Band marching in the parade gave us a thrill. The Morgan horses hitched to wagons made my heart skip a beat, such magnificent creatures. There were children riding ponies, and lots of other horses. The riders all seemed in a festive mood. But who doesn't love a parade?

As we turned to leave, the summer sun was setting in bands of gold and I left behind 20 years of memories.

"Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life from which the first was made."-Robert Browning.