Ready Set Ride hoping for justice

You have heard Ready Set Ride, a 501c3 charity, which provides horseback riding therapy to children and adults with disabilities for the last 16 years is being evicted. What isn’t well known is the cruel injustice that Ready Set Ride is really going through.

The owner of the land, Joesph Tages was a doctor that was indicted in 2011 on insurance and tax fraud. Tages took a plea deal. He admitted that he did not report most of the cash payments that patients made to his medical office from 2004 to 2008. His physician and surgeon license and controlled substance license were indefinitely suspended effective December 31, 2013, after he plead guilty to willfully making and subscribing false Tax Returns per the August 2013 edition of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation report.

As some of you know, Ready Set Ride has been renting the property since 2001. The rent has been paid faithfully every month. It was not until January 2017 that Ready Set Ride found out the property had been in foreclosure since July 2016. When Ready Set Ride contacted the bank to see what could be done to purchase the property, it was found at that time that Mr Tages had not told anyone handling the foreclosure that he was leasing the barn property and receiving rent money. Mr Tages has also filed for bankruptcy. Because of this, Ready Set Ride would prefer to pay the bank directly for the rent or someone handling the foreclosure but Mr Tages will not give authorization. Furthermore, he has been an absentee landlord so any issues that were experienced had to be handled and paid for by the charity. The barn property is attached to a rundown home which is not part of Ready Set Ride. The electrical and water come over to the barn from that home. There were a couple of winters that were extremely difficult because the pipes kept freezing due to being exposed to the elements from the flood in the spring of 2013. We could not provide water to the horses. The local fire department came out many times to assist by giving us water but RSR needed a long-term solution. The pipes had to be fixed and reburied in order to return running water to the barn. Ready Set Ride took on the responsibility of correcting this issue as Mr Tages refused to handle it. During the 2013 flood, we also lost a lot of fencing and the bridge that connects the barn side of the creek to the house side has yet to be replaced. This year, we had faulty wiring issues where two horses and a volunteer were electrocuted. One of the horses had died. Once again, Ready Set Ride had to deal with the cost to fix the electric as well as the loss of a beautiful horse. Both the water and electrical issues came from the home that Ready Set Ride is not responsible for. Mr Tages advised RSR that he did not want to fix the issues in the home however by not doing so, he was denying the barn electric and water which are essential to taking care of the animals at the barn.

On Thursday, 7/13/17, Ready Set Ride heads back to court so the judge can hear Mr Tages' side of why he will not accept the $7600. rent that is being offered. It is about $2000. less than what Mr Tages is demanding but that is what was spent by RSR to fix the water and electric that Mr Tages is supposed to be responsible for. As a volunteer for Ready Set Ride for many years, this has been heartbreaking to witness. This Charity has helped so many families and is in jeopardy because of one man’s greed. We hope that the judge will see this and serve real justice. We have faith that the judge will stand by the community, this wonderful charity and all those children and adults with disabilities that the charity has supported these last 16 years.

Ready Set Ride has a petition that you could sign which currently has over 28 thousand signatures from across the world. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/197/202/166/save-reday-set-ride/

There is also a go fund me account to help the charity either purchase the existing property or to find a new one. The goal is set for $100,000 and currently up to $13,000. https://www.gofundme.com/save-ready-set-ride

Ready Set Ride is very appreciative and thankful for all of the community support!