More than 10,000 farm tour visitors a year can’t be wrong. These tours are addictive!
Oldham Farm Tours and Oldham Farm Stays offer the most unique Kentucky horse farm tours around because touching is not only allowed – it’s encouraged. And not just on horse farm tours. All 13 farm tours are hands-on, interactive learning experiences that will create lasting memories of your Kentucky getaway. We like to call these petting zoos for adults!
Farm Tour Capital of Kentucky
Known as the “Farm Tour Capital of Kentucky,” Oldham County is just 20 minutes from downtown Louisville and 60 minutes from Cincinnati off I-71. It’s also the only place in Kentucky where you can find hands-on farm tours, restaurants in horse barns and B&Bs on Kentucky horse farms! Can you think of a more authentic Kentucky experience than enjoying a fresh farm-to-table meal in a real racehorse stall? Us either!
Call farms at least 24 hours ahead to schedule more than one tour in a day, because you’ll be hooked after the first one. You’ll want to love and feed the animals, then pick and taste gourmet veggies at Rootbound Farm, just one of the Foodie Farm Tours offered. Walk and smell the flowers on the trails at nature preserves and botanical gardens. Milk a cow at the dairy, then ride into a herd of Kentucky bison!
Oldham County’s farm tours are fun and educational, yet offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside the world of Kentucky’s horse industry, the foodie farm-to-table movement and “green” initiative farms showcasing garden, conservation and sustainability.
Farms, Farms and More Farms
One of the most popular Oldham County Farm Tours only hosts group tours of 10 or more and has to be booked through the Oldham County Tourism office. You’ll surely recognize Windy Meadows Horse Farm from Hallmark’s® film series “The Ultimate Legacy” starring Raquel Welch, “J.L. Family Ranch” starring Jon Voight and Melanie Griffith, and “Orphan Horse.” In addition to being a hot Kentucky film location, Windy Meadows showcases horses of all breeds and tells the story of each gorgeous one. You’ll get the real scoop about life on a Kentucky horse farm with this tour!
Hermitage Farm is a historic world-class racehorse operation dating back to the 1800s. One of the few farms to raise a Triple Crown Winner and be visited by Queen Elizabeth, Hermitage Farm added its newest addition to Oldham Farm Tours in 2020 – Barn8 Restaurant & Bourbon Bar, the only farm-to-table restaurant in a horse barn in Kentucky. The farm operates as a maternity ward and nursery for racehorses, producing more than 200 Stakes winners since its inception. Past thoroughbred residents at Hermitage include Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Oaks and Breeders’ Cup winners. You will also find a carriage-driving museum showcasing the carriage from “Gone with the Wind.”
Visit Second Stride Retired Race Horse Farm to learn first-hand how these special thoroughbred horses start down the path to new careers after racing. This informative tour will highlight the kings and queens of Kentucky’s racehorse heritage. Come feed them peppermints and carrots and take the best Kentucky horse farm tour photos imaginable.
Oldham County’s newest horse farm tour is Sanctuary Farm at Chestnut Hall, a retired racehorse farm and historic home operated by the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and owned by an Oldham County resident and the CEO of Churchill Downs. This is the foundation’s only farm that is open to the public for tours.
Bison and Bourbon
The bright green rabbits and huge hot pink snails draw you up the driveway to this awesome farm on the Ohio River. Woodland Bison Farm Tour teaches guests about Kentucky bison while riding through the herd on a wagon. You’ll see gourmet organic produce being raised for high-end hotels and restaurants, and you’ll learn about the farm’s sustainably raised bison for Kentucky Bison Company. Before heading out, pick up some bison, pork, eggs and produce from the farm store.
Learn the art of craft distilling and the use of locally grown grains on an interactive tour of the Kentucky Craft Bourbon Trail’s Kentucky Artisan Distillery, home of Jefferson’s Bourbons, Whiskey Row and Whiskey Row’s Bottle-in-Bond. Every tour offers a behind-the-scenes view of the process, including a rare visit to the actual lab where the experiments of Jefferson’s founder and master blender, Trey Zoeller, come to life. You don’t have to like bourbon to enjoy this fascinating tour with distilling antiques galore and bourbon tastings like no other.
Lush Gardens & Native Habitats
At the 170-acre Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve, little ones can toddle about a magical forest play area after visiting the natural history museum. The whole family can enjoy 9 miles of scenic wooded trails and meadows along spring-fed creeks, a frog pond, a new 2-acre woodland garden, a bird blind, waterfalls, picnic areas and camping.
See the stone castle rising over Yew Dell Botanical Gardens, a nationally recognized center of gardening and sustainable horticulture. Visitors will find extensive display gardens, as well as have their pick of educational programs and family-oriented community events, such as cooking classes and Boo Dell at Yew Dell! The kiddos will surely enjoy Yew Dell’s “Nature and Garden Backpack” or “Books ‘n’ Blankets.”
Delicious Dairy & Fine Fabrics
Got milk? Harvest Home Dairy does, along with award-winning artisan cheeses, too. Schedule a tour and watch a working family dairy farm in action to learn why happy cows really do give more milk. The best time to visit? When there are babies to see and feed. You may even milk a cow on this tour.
The perfect spot to rest your head and hooves after dinner by the tracks of Main Street in historic La Grange is the luxurious 9-acre Bluegrass Country Estate Equine Bed & Breakfast, which greets you with a life-sized bronze statue of horse and colt. You can’t go wrong with The Inn at Spring Run Farm with its ash floors and log walls, and you don’t want to miss Pillow and Paddock Bed and Breakfast. (All three properties have been voted a Google Favorite Place.) There are also numerous local vacation rental homes, all with a personality of their own.
Not far from Oldham County you’ll find a host of nearby attractions in the Bourbon, Horses & History Region of Kentucky, like the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum, Kentucky Derby Museum, Churchill Downs, Louisville Slugger Museum, Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, Muhammad Ali Center, Smith-Berry Winery and the Belle of Louisville. All Oldham County, Kentucky, hotels are just outside Louisville with easy, low-traffic interstate access to I-71.
Plan Your Trip
Check out this Kentucky Bourbon, Horses & Trains video, then call 800-813-9953 or visit www.TourOldham.com for more information. And when you visit, be sure to stop in the Visitor’s Center at 6828 W. State Highway 22 in Crestwood inside The Maples Park to learn about more discoveries that await!
