The responsibility doesn't end when the racing does.
Maplehurst Stock Farm is a living Kentucky horse farm, carrying more than a century of heritage forward through rescue, rehabilitation, retirement, and preservation. The same land. The same lineage. A new kind of stewardship.
One place, four things at once.
We are operational, historical, preservation-focused, and mission-driven, all on the same Kentucky ground.
The property carries deep roots in the original Bayless family horse farm and its Standardbred racing heritage. In 1898 it became Maplehurst Stock Farm under Warren Adams Bacon Jr. Over the generations the farm has bred and raised both Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds, and that working legacy continues today.
Maplehurst Stock Farm is the farm operation. Its rescue, rehabilitation, and retirement work is carried out by Mane Characters Equine Reserve & Retirement, the nonprofit equine reserve based here at the farm. We board and foal horses with individualized care, and we steward what came before us: the structures, the bloodlines, and the resting places of the horses who built this farm’s name.
The horses of the past are still part of the farm today.
Jay Bird was a Standardbred of real consequence, a stallion whose influence ran deep in the breed’s bloodlines. He stood stud here. He lived here. He died here. And he was buried here, on this land.
For years that resting place was lost to memory. Its rediscovery, a marble marker, quietly returned to the record, turned the farm’s history from something abstract into something physical and present.
Stewardship that evolved, rather than ended.
The rescue mission did not replace the farm’s racing history, it grew out of it. Harry was the first official rescue, and the moment the farm’s purpose widened from preserving the past to caring actively for horses in the present.
Rescue, rehabilitation, retirement, dignified lifelong care: the same responsibility the old farm held, carried into a new form. This work is carried forward by Mane Characters Equine Reserve and Retirement, our established nonprofit, with the same standard of care the farm has always held.
Scale enough to do this seriously.
Two separate properties of working Kentucky land, built for rescue, rehabilitation, retirement, boarding, and conditioning, with room to grow into the long-term vision.
Across generations, on the same land.
Select a horse
Lislea Harry · May 28, 2003 – April 13, 2024
Our inaugural Mane Character. Harry came to Maplehurst as the farm's first official rescue and spent his final thirteen months here in our care. He passed on April 13, 2024, and rests beside Jay Bird at Jay Bird Grove in the Maplehurst Equine Cemetery. He was the bridge between this land's racing legacy and the rescue and retirement work it now exists to do.
Standardbred and Thoroughbred lines, bred with patience.
The farm’s working side: a small, considered band of stallions and broodmares carrying both Standardbred and Thoroughbred blood, some of it tied to the farm’s own history. Pedigrees, records, and stud fees on each page.
The stallion roster.
Standardbred and Thoroughbred sires standing 2026, with pedigrees, race records, and stud fees. Live cover and shipped semen where noted.
View the stallions →
The broodmare band.
The mares are the foundation. Pedigrees, produce records, and current breeding status for the band in our care.
View the broodmares →Help carry the responsibility forward.
Support keeps horses fed and cared for, keeps the land working, and protects what history remains. We’d rather invite participation than push fundraising, every form of help matters.
Horse care
Daily feed, veterinary support, rehabilitation, and dignified retirement for the horses in our care.
Preservation
Stabilizing the Bayless House and protecting Jay Bird Grove and the equine cemetery for the future.
Sustainability
Sustaining the work for generations to come, facilities, land, and people, so the care never lapses.
These horses mattered. Their history mattered. And the responsibility to them did not end when their usefulness did.