Ahmed Zayat

The $23-million lawsuit by a lender against Ahmed Zayat and his financially troubled Zayat Stables, LLC, was nearly four years in the making. But a series of red-flag events over the last four months put the alleged fraud more alarmingly into focus, sparking frantic efforts by the plaintiff to get the troubled racing and bloodstock business into court-mandated receivership before the equine assets used to secure $30 million in loans were potentially sold off and hidden. Although the major allegations in the civil lawsuit filed by MGG Investment Group, LP,...

Additional reporting by Lucas Marquardt When the assets of Zayat Stables, LLC, were ordered into receivership by a Fayette Circuit Court judge in Kentucky on Wednesday as part of a $23 million lawsuit by a lender alleging fraud and loan defaults, the judgment caused reverberations within the Thoroughbred bloodstock and racing world beyond those felt by Ahmed Zayat and his family. (Click here to read the TDN story.) Specifically, questions began to swirl about what would happen to the Zayat horses either at farms or currently in training in New...

A Fayette County, Kentucky judge granted a motion at an emergency hearing Wednesday to put Zayat Stables and its horses into receivership, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader. The ruling follows a lawsuit filed by New York-based MGG Investment Group alleging that owner Ahmed Zayat had sold shares in Triple Crown-winning stallion American Pharoah that were being used as collateral against loans made by MGG to Zayat. MGG's lawsuit alleges that Zayat defaulted on his loans in September, and seeks at least $23 million from Zayat. According to the Herald-Leader, Zayat sent...