On Derby Day, Visiting A College Where You Can Major In Horses

Today brings the familiar excitement of the Kentucky Derby. Television-ready, mint juleps and perhaps one of the few horse races many of us will watch all year. But an hour's drive from Churchill Downs, students and staff at Midway University may not find time to watch, because they're taking care of their own horses. Midway is an old town right in the center of the Bluegrass, and just on the edge you'll find an old college. It started as the Kentucky Female Orphan School, which came along in 1849, and later became Midway College, for women. Now it's coed and has grown into a university with 1,200 students. And the school's specialty? Horses plus Equine Management. Midway's a regular red-brick school that's almost surrounded by barns and paddocks. The school's 35 horses spend most of their nights outside, even in wind and spring rains. Early morning brings a day's dark rest in their stalls. They'll be properly fed and cleaned and brushed by some of the 75 students in the equine program