Trainer Mike Maker filed a motion for summary judgment against multiple Eclipse Award-winning owner/breeders Ken and Sarah Ramsey in Kentucky's Fayette Circuit Court on July 14, alleging that the couple have once again stopped paying their training bills.
Maker brought suit against the Ramseys in March 2021, alleging he was owed $905,357.29, which at the time was an improvement on the $1.25 million he had been owed in summer 2020. Ken Ramsey told this and other publications at the time of the filing that he expected to reach an agreement with Maker to finish paying off the bills and convince the trainer to drop the suit.
According to an affidavit filed by attorney Tyler Powell, Maker said Ramsey offered to pay $100,000 or more to him on or before the 15th of each month — and for a while, he did. Maker notes payments of $127,531.70 in March, $131, 290 in April, and $160,000 in May. After that, however, Maker said the payments stopped. In the meantime, the horses the Ramseys still had in Maker's barn continued running up bills in March and April, eroding some of his progress on the outstanding balance. Maker says the Ramseys now owe $505,385.92, and that figure doesn't include attorneys' fees associated with pursuing the outstanding balance.
Maker had filed UCC-1 financing statements with the Kentucky Secretary of State around the time he filed his civil suit, placing liens on the 27 horses he still had in his care at the time. His July 14 motion states he no longer has Ramsey horses in his barn.
The motion filed this week points out that Ken Ramsey hasn't contested that he owes the money.
“It's not that I'm not paying, it's just that I guess I'm not paying fast enough,” Ken Ramsey told the Paulick Report in March 2021. “I have never beaten anybody out of a dime.”
Maker requests a summary judgment from the court against the couple, and that motion is scheduled to be heard at the end of the month.
Trainer Wesley Ward also filed suit against the couple in March 2021, claiming he was owed $974,790.40 in unpaid training bills, his portion of purses, and interest. Ward placed liens on 44 horses in his care at the time he brought his civil suit. That case also remains open in Jessamine Circuit Court.
The Ramseys have won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Owner four times (2004, 2011, 2013, and 2014) and the award for Outstanding Breeder twice (2013 and 2014). Since 2000, Equibase reports the couple has won 2,223 races from 9,814 starts for total earnings of more than $98 million. Their annual earnings have fallen from their peak in 2013 of over $12 million, and last year the stable brought in $2.3 million from 274 starts. Their Ramsey Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., was the longtime base for the operation's homebred and centerpiece stallion, Kitten's Joy, who relocated to Hill 'n' Dale in 2018.
The post Maker Files New Motion In Civil Case Against Ramseys, Alleges Payments Have Stopped appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
