The Santa Fe Horse Park is in default on its $2.25 million mortgage, according to a complaint filed this week by Los Alamos National Bank.

Venture capitalist Charles Kokesh, one of four owners of the equestrian center and polo grounds, said Thursday that he was surprised to hear about the complaint because the park paid its mortgage through December and is behind on its January and February payments.

"That seems a little vindictive or at least hair-trigger," he said. "It doesn't make good banking sense. If you're willing to do that, you're clearly not concerned with the business success of your borrower."

Kokesh said the complaint appears to involve an unrelated debt incurred by one of his defunct firms, Checktech Financial Corp. He said he thought he had recently negotiated a settlement with Los Alamos National Bank to consolidate Checktech's debt with that of Santa Fe Horse Park.

"Now we may end up with a Mexican standoff," he said.

The bank filed the lawsuit Monday in state District Court. Bill Enloe, CEO of Los Alamos National Bank, said, "We've bent over backwards to work with Mr. Kokesh and there are obligations he must meet. We don't file lawsuits lightly and don't do foreclosures lightly."

Kokesh, who has business degrees from Harvard and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, founded a venture-capital firm called Technology Funding Capital Corp. in San Mateo, Calif., in 1979.

In 1997, he moved the firm to Santa Fe, where he also started or acquired Technology Funding Securities Corp., Technology Funding Office Systems and Checktech Financial — none of which are still in business, he said Thursday.

In 1998, Kokesh purchased the 35-acre Santa Fe Polo Grounds, southwest of Santa Fe near La Cieneguilla, doubled its size and added stables, a club house, tack shop and spa. The city once supplied sewer effluent to irrigate the park's 34 acres of Kentucky bluegrass, but cut off the effluent more than a year ago in a dispute over an alleged debt of $189,481.

Kokesh, who is running a rifle-manufacturing plant called Dakota Arms in Sturgis, S.D., said the financial dispute with the city is tied to a dispute over water rights. He said he now gets water to irrigate his fields from the nearby Hagerman Well that is owned by Santa Fe County. "The city has made a terrible mistake by moving to a litigious position," he said.

Assistant City Attorney Maureen Reed said Kokesh is trying to sell his water rights to Public Service Company of New Mexico for $1 million. "The city is disputing that he has valid water rights, but he's pushing forward," she said. "It was scheduled to go through in a week or so."

Santa Fe Horse Park's Web site does not appear to have been updated recently. It's "News & Events" page has no entries other than a note that says, "Stay tuned ... for news and announcements concerning the coming polo season."

No one answered the phone at Santa Fe Horse Park on Thursday, but Kokesh said that's because of a malfunction of its new phone system. He said the business is still operating, and there is no plan to close it or declare bankruptcy.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.