Michael Blowen began his career as an educator. After earning a Master’s Degree from Boston’s Emerson College he was asked to stay on and teach, and he did. “I didn’t have to look for a job and I loved it," he says. But Blowen had also long been interested in pursuing a career as a writer.
He got an opportunity to pen an article about director Elia Kazan’s film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon. The piece was published in an alternative weekly and it garnered the attention of an editor at the Boston Globe. An interview led to a position a “second-string” critic and then ultimately, as the newspaper's top film reviewer.
When and editor at the Globe invited Blowen to the track one day. It sparked a new interest and, eventually new career. Blowen became an owner with several partners, and, in time, found himself working on the back stretch of Suffolk Downs for trainer Carlos Figueroa to learn more about horses.
After retiring from the Globe in 2000, Blowen accepted a position as the Operations Manager for the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation in Kentucky, and soon after, in 2003, he launched Old Friends, the non-profit Thoroughbred Retirement Facility in Georgetown, KY., that now supports over 160 retired horses in 10 locations.
