page_title: Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey
section_title: Horse breeding and racing
hierarchical_section_title: Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey / Horse breeding and racing
caption_attribution_description: Rosie Napravnik on Dehere On Tour in the racing colors of Ken and Sarah Ramsey at Churchill Downs, June 16, 2013
context_page_description: Kenneth L. "Ken" Ramsey and Sarah Kathern "Kitten" Ramsey are horse breeders and owners of Thoroughbred race horses. They have multiple graded stakes winners, three Breeders' Cup winners, and the Ramseys themselves have won multiple Eclipse Awards for outstanding owner and breeder. Ken and Sarah own Ramsey Farm, a 1,200 acre horse breeding operation in Nicholasville, Kentucky, and have raced horses at tracks throughout the United States. Many of their race horses have names incorporating the word "Kitten", Ken's nickname for Sarah Ramsey, used as the inspiration for the name of their leading stallion, Kitten's Joy, a successful racehorse in longer races on turf racetracks. When his style of racing proved unfashionable and outside breeders were reluctant to send mares to him, the Ramseys bought a herd of their own mares to breed and raced the progeny themselves, with considerable success, punctuated by Ken Ramsey personally leading most of his horses into the winner's circle after their races.
context_section_description: Ken's original interest in horse racing began when an aunt took him to Churchill Downs when he was 6 years old.  As an adult, he began buying race horses from the claiming race ranks, but his first claimer never raced.  As Ramsey explained, "The first horse I ever owned was Red Redeemer and it was about 1968 or '69—I've been around a long time. I claimed the horse for $1,500 at a now-defunct half-mile bull ring called Miles Park in west Louisville... [the horse] was totally blind in one eye so we ended up claiming a horse that had one eye and no testicles."
  Ken held a trainer's license for a short period, and the Ramseys bred a few Thoroughbreds in the 1970s and 1980s. They became serious about horse breeding in 1994 when they purchased the former Almahurst Farm, which was the birthplace of 1918 Kentucky Derby winner Exterminator and the Standardbred racehorse Greyhound. They renamed the farm Ramsey Farm and as of 2015 stand the stallions Kitten's Joy, Catienus and Real Solution.
  The Ramsey Farm focuses on breeding horses to race, not simply to sell or show.  They allow their horses to live in a natural environment outside most of the time, which helps the horses be tougher on the track.  They stay outside even in cold weather and are allowed to run over rolling, hilly terrain. The Ramsey fields are about 70 acres each and horses are grouped into herds of about 30.  Ken Ramsey takes particular pride in the farm's water, which is taken from springs and creeks that are on farm property, and used for both human and horse consumption.  However, the horses are also given luxury treatment when needed—the farm also has an equine spa that has an underwater treadmill with whirlpool jets. It can be heated, and when horses exit the spa, there is also a vibrating platform beneath heat lamps for further treatment.  It was originally built for the care of Kitten's Joy, but is also used by other horses who have a need for its benefits.
  The Ramseys work with many trainers, matching their horses to  trainers that fit a horse's specialty.  Kitten's Joy was trained by Dale Romans. Other horses have been trained by D. Wayne Lukas, Bobby Frankel, Chad Brown, and Mike Maker. In 2015, they sent 11 horses to the new training stable of Maker's former assistant, Joe Sharp.
  By 2017, the Ramseys had 630 horses, with as many as 400 in race training, and produced about 100 foals a year.  At the urging of their sons, they began to reduce the number of claiming horses they raced, and downsized their breeding size of their operation to focus their efforts on higher-end races, particularly using daughters of Kitten's Joy to produce horses that can run on dirt tracks and with Derby potential. A grandson said of Ken, "he wants it on his tombstone that he won the Kentucky Derby."
caption: Rosie Napravnik on the Ramsey's Dehere On Tour, 2013[13]
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