Kentucky Derby win would be fitting epitaph for Ken Ramsey

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - If you do not have a betting interest in Saturday's Kentucky Derby, root for International Star. With 20 horses come 20 stories about the people who are around the horse. None is better than the story of Ken and Sarah Ramsey, the husband and wife team for 57 years who decided late in life to chase a horse racing dream and have beaten the odds in every way but one.

The Ramseys grew up in Artemus, Ky. (pop. 500), down in the southeastern part of the state. Ken was a truck driver, which he parlayed into owning a trucking company followed by a real estate business and a bunch of cell towers. They made millions. They bought a few cheap horses. They bought a farm. They got better horses.

They decided to name a top prospect after Sarah, aka Kitten. Turned out Kitten's Joy was a grass-racing star making his owners more millions. They decided to breed Kitten's Joy, but found out nobody else wanted to breed to him. So they went out and bought a hundred mares and bred them all to their stallion. It is what every breeder is warned against. Do not gamble everything on one horse.

The Ramseys named all the offspring after friends and family members with one part of the name in every one - Kitten. So there was Bobby's Kitten (named for the late trainer Bobby Frankel), Stephanie's Kitten (named for a granddaughter), Big Blue Kitten (named for Kentucky basketball) and on and on and on.

All those Kittens started to win everywhere they ran. The Ramseys were leading owners at Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Saratoga. Kitten's Joy's stud fee zoomed to $100,000. Other owners with mares were now knocking on their door. The Ramseys' gamble paid off. They have won the Eclipse Award as leading owners four times, including the last two years when their horses won almost $23 million.

Ken Ramsey turns 80 later this year. He is down to two wishes. He desperately wants his wife to get out of the wheelchair she has been confined to since a terrible stroke in 2007, but knows it is not going to happen without some type of medical miracle. And he wants to win the Kentucky Derby.

"Well, I'll tell you what, I'll probably put it on an epitaph on my tombstone that I won the Derby in 2015, or '16, '17, or '28, or whatever I win it in," said Ramsey, one of the most likeable and accessible people in sports. " My previous epitaph on my tombstone was, since I'm an entrepreneur, 'I made a lot of good deals but I went in the hole in this one.' So, I hope to change that and put on there that I won the Kentucky Derby in a certain year, and it could be 2015."

It could be. International Star swept the Louisiana prep races and kept running faster each time. The horse is definitely good enough to win a Derby. The problem is that it may not be this Derby. And Ramsey, who first came to Churchill Downs 75 years ago, would know because he knows the history of the track and the race.

"This is one of the greatest fields I've seen lining up, from top to bottom," Ramsey said. "It almost reminds me, I go back farther and I remember when Northern Dancer beat Hill Rise." That would be 1964.

The form of the top horses has been steady all year. It is going to take an exceptional horse to win.

If it is just about which owner loves the game the most, International Star is a cinch. Nobody could possibly love this game more than Ken Ramsey. His horses run in low-level claiming races. They run in Dubai. And they have won all over, just not in the Kentucky Derby, not yet.

"We look for pedigrees," Ramsey said. "We look for trainers that can get the job done. For example, you know, I don't like to go fishing, even with the very best bait and tackle, in a swimming pool. There's no fish there, so if you want to get to the Derby you have to get a trainer that can get you there, and I've succeeded in doing that."

Todd Pletcher has gotten him there a few times. This year, it is high-percentage Mike Maker who trains International Star.

The Derby is so hard because so many want it so badly. Thus, the 20-horse field and the millions spent to get there. The Ramseys spent just $85,000 to get International Star at a sale 2 years ago. And here they are again - with a chance.

"The price is going up, though," Ramsey said. "My last two prospects I had in the Derby, I paid less than that for them. So, it's kind of hard to get in the Derby with these second- and third- and fourth-round draft choices."

Ramsey does not just gamble on breeding. He bets on his horses, bets big on them. In fact, Ramsey's whole life has been a gamble.

"I was raised in what you might say a cold-water flat," Ramsey said. "Instead of having three, four rooms and a bath, we had four rooms and a path. That's one of the reasons I like thoroughbred racing because you meet all sorts of people all over the world. I mean, you meet the movers and shakers, the captains of industry, rulers of countries . . . I've met some people that no way in the world a little boy from Artemus, Kentucky would ever even had an opportunity of running across, except through thoroughbred racing."

And now the Ramseys have International Star in the Kentucky Derby.

"It could be my turn," Ken Ramsey said, hopefully.