Ken Ramsey

The seven-day Kentucky Downs meet set another record for wagering, totaling $90,181,408 and up eight percent over last year, according to a press release from the track late Wednesday. That included a single-day record of $21,184,941 on the Saturday, Sept. 7 card featuring six graded stakes worth $2 million for Kentucky-breds ($1 million for others). As for the meet's leaders, jockey Tyler Gaffalione finished with nine wins, to pull even with Irad Ortiz Jr. for the riding title, while Brendan Walsh's sixth victory put him in a tie for the...

Saffie Joseph, Jr. collected his 10th Gulfstream Park training title in a row, while Edgard Zayas regained the top spot in the jockey standings when the Royal Palm Meet concluded Sunday. Joseph broke his own Royal Palm Meet record with 93 victories, eclipsing the 71 winners he sent out during the 2021 stand. Zayas, who won the Royal Palm Meet title in 2020 and 2021, was third in the standings in 2022 and 2023. During this year's meet, he regained the top spot in the standings with 112 winners. Ken...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.--With his romp through mud in the opener at Saratoga Race Course Saturday, Reach for the Rose (Audible) hit the target that owner-breeder Ken Ramsey and trainer Saffie Joseph were aiming at. The 5 1/2-length victory in a $100,000 maiden special for 2-year-olds that had been taken off the turf gave colt his first career win and earnings of $55,000. Far more important for Ramsey and Joseph, the win in the one-mile race against three foes is a stepping stone to the $1 million Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sept....

Owner Ken Ramsey has texted an update on his June 20 surgery in which he received a donated kidney from family friend Tom Pope, declaring his surgery not only a `huge success,' but a record-breaking one. "My kidney transplant was a huge success," said Ramsey via text. "The surgery was done at New York-Presbyterian Hospital at the Weill Cornell Transplant Center by Dr. Sandip Kapur on Thursday June 20th." Ramsey said that the kidney was donated by someone he met through his wife Sarah's long illness. "My generous donor was...

An hour after leaving the operating room following kidney transplant surgery, Ken Ramsey's attention turned to Thursday's program at Gulfstream Park, where Clearly Copper (Copper Bullet) raced and won under his familiar white and red colors in the sixth race on the card, the racetrack said in a release Thursday afternoon. "My mother's up there with him. She texted that he was asking if the horse had run yet," said grandson Nolan Ramsey in the Gulfstream Park winner's circle after saddling Clearly Copper for a 4 1/2-length maiden-breaking triumph. "An...

Ken Ramsey said that his donor kidney surgery is scheduled for Thursday morning at 9 a.m. at New York Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. "I have passed all of my tests, and my donor has passed all his essential tests," Ramsey said by text. "They've placed me on their accelerated priority list and are really taking good care of me. I will be the oldest kidney transplant they've ever done. The record is 84 and I'm going to be 88, seven months and 17 days. It's nice to be the new poster...

Owner Ken Ramsey is in critical need of a donor kidney, and said he will not survive the eight-to-10-year wait on the transplant list, estimating he has about four months to live without it. Ramsey said he currently has three options: "I either have to go on dialysis or die or get a kidney. I do not want to do the dialysis three days a week, four hours a day for the rest of my life." Ramsey has traveled to NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia Hospital in Manhattan, and is being treated at...

Nolan Ramsey, the longtime assistant to Mike Maker who went out on his own in April, saddled his first winner as a trainer Friday at Gulfstream Park when the 3-year-old Marshamarshamarsha (Demarchelier {GB}) won a $16,000 claimer by 1 3/4 lengths. Owned by his grandfather Ken Ramsey, the filly picked up her second career win with the effort after coming three-wide into the lane. The trainer has assembled a 30-strong stable in Hallandale, and has plans to train a small string in the mid-Atlantic. "It's special. It's the first one....

Ken Ramsey finished the Gulfstream Championship meet atop the owner standings with 27 winners. A perennial leading owner, Ramsey previously led the standings at Gulfstream in 2021-2022, 2019-2020 and from 2012-2013 to 2017-2018. His wins during the meet included Be My Sunshine (Frosted) in the Tropical Park Oaks and Abrumar (Divisidero) in the Colonel Liam S., both from the barn of leading trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr.

Edited Press Release Ken Ramsey is back at the Claiming Crown. If he has only three horses (in two races) running in the program designed to showcase American horse racing's blue-collar horses, it's not for a lack of effort. The 88-year-old Ramsey is the winningest owner in the history of the Claiming Crown, which will be staged for the 25th time this Saturday at the historic Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots. But his last starter came with Peru (GB) (Motivator {GB}), whose victory in the 2018 Claiming Crown Tiara...

Edited Press Release Tyler Gaffalione capped off his third Kentucky Downs riding title in style, winning three races on Wednesday's closing-day card to finish with 12 victories for the FanDuel Meet, five more than 2021 riding champion and second-finisher Joel Rosario. Brendan Walsh earned his second training title, and first outright, at the track with eight wins, three more than Kentucky Downs' all-time win leader Mike Maker, who had a meet-high 10 seconds and nine thirds. Ken Ramsey, the winningest owner in Kentucky Downs history as well as Kentucky, won...

Visitation for Sarah Kathern Ramsey, who passed away Sunday at the family's Ramsey Farm, will be held at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home at 3421 Harrodsburg Road, Lexington, Kentucky Thursday, June 2, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be visitation at Knox Funeral Home at 325 Knox Street, Barbourville, Kentucky from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, June 3 and at the East Barbourville Baptist Church, 279 Old US 25, from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 4, immediately preceding a 2 p.m. burial across the street from...