Funny Cide goes for the Triple Crown

[CMJ]

Tommorrow Funny Cide runs in the Belmont Stakes hoping to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in 120+ years. In doing so he'd become arguably one of the greatest 25 or so horses in US history(and that's provided he never runs again - which of course he will).

It's actually gotten alot of attention. More than any horse I can remember at least. I've seen big time news coverage on all the networks. He's kinda become the "People's Champion" in a way that hasn't been done with a horse in a generation.

Yeah I know most of yall probably don't care, but bare with me. ;) There hasn't been a Crown winner in my lifetime(the last was Affirmed in 1978 - the year I was born) and I've always wanted to see one.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Wow, that would be awesome...is that one of the horses in your sig? You told me what horse that was, but I can't remember now, of course. :uhoh

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Youre still a toddler, CMJ ;)

I saw both Affirmed and Secretariat win the TC. Gawds, I love to watch horse racing. Sadly, I missed both the Derby and Preakness :cry

[JediBoricua]

If I were Funny Cide's owner I would feel terrible about castrating him though, imagine all the money he will loose.


I think the horse is getting so much attention because of the Derby controversy. I felt really good for the jockey seeing him win the Preakness.

[CMJ]

Holly...yes, the red one is Funny Cide.

JediBoricua the reason FC was gelded(and I don't mean to get graphic) is he hadn't properly formed - ie they hadn't "dropped" right" - and was causing him major discomfort.

I actually think alot of things are coming into play with the media attention around the horse. One is the jockey, but the bigger story is the owners.

The guys that own the horse are high school buddies from a small town up in Upstate New York. They each pooled 5 grand to buy a racehorse for 30 thousand like 6 or 7 years ago. This is not some ultra rich farm with millions and millions of bucks.

They only own like 3 horses - and one of them just happens to be a great one. They got him for 75 thousand which is a bargain in that buisness. In fact they almost DIDN'T buy him because they couldn't afford him. They had to get more partners to afford the horse.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I hope he wins tomorrow that would be very cool.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Ive been wracking my brain....Secretariet DID win the TC....didnt he? :huh Sorry, Im having an old-timers' moment :-\

One of my favorite horses ever was Native Dancer. I think I liked him because of his name and the fact that he wasnt a sorrel/bay/brown, etc. He was a gorgeous grey!

[CMJ]

Lady Daiquri...yes Secretariat won the TC in 1973. He, Man O'War, and Citation are widely regarded as the greatest thoroughbreds ever in North America.

Native Dancer is also considered one of the all-timers. He only lost one race his entire career - it just happened to be the Kentucky Derby.

Here's a great story I just got off of MSNBC about the phenomenon.

**********************************

NEW YORK, June 5 — East Cide, West Cide, and on the World Wide Web, a fairy tale named Funny Cide is unfolding in thoroughbred racing.The next chapter in this extraordinary saga will be written Saturday, when Funny Cide attempts to win the Belmont Stakes and become the first Triple Crown champion in a quarter-century.

“IT’S SOMETHING YOU always dream about but you never think it can come true,” says Jose Santos, Funny Cide’s jockey.

Welcome to Funny Cide frenzy, now in full swing and about to reach fever pitch at 6:38 p.m. EDT — post time for the 1½-mile Belmont, the final and most grueling leg of the Triple Crown races.

“The anticipation is building,” says Jack Knowlton, general partner of Sackatoga Stable, a group that includes six high school pals from Sackets Harbor, N.Y., who shelled out $75,000 to buy Funny Cide. “It was almost unbearable before the Preakness. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like before the Belmont.”

And word is out: Funny Cide is a superstar, owned by a bunch of “regular guys,” trained by journeyman Barclay Tagg and ridden by New York regular Santos, wrongly linked to carrying something illegal when he won the Kentucky Derby.

“The whole story is why America loves him,” Tagg’s assistant Robin Smullen said this week. “The story about paying $75,000 for him, him sort of being the underdog, and it’s the ninth horse these people have ever owned. It’s all that more than it is actually Funny Cide.

“But, of course, it’s because of Funny Cide.”

At Belmont Park, there’s a sign at the front gate welcoming race fans to Funny Cide’s home track, grooms and hotwalkers are walking around the backstretch wearing “We Love Funny Cide” buttons, and artist LeRoy Neiman showed up one morning to begin work on a Funny Cide portrait.

Even trainer Bobby Frankel, who will send out Empire Maker to try and spoil the party, is paying attention.

“You got a New York bred, and you got a gelding,” Frankel said. “And you got guys (owners) I read about the other day that I was interested in. Racing needs things like this. Even the Santos thing, bad or good, gets people thinking about racing.”

Win or lose Saturday, Funny Cide has already made history. He’s the first New York-bred to win the Derby and the first gelding to challenge for the Triple Crown, won by such great colts as Whirlaway, Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed.

Promotions people are trying to take advantage.

Santos threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium on May 27 — 10 days after winning the Preakness. Triple Crown sponsor Visa will pay Funny Cide’s owners a $5 million bonus if the horse wins the Belmont. The owners have set up funnycide.com and created Funny Cide Ventures.

Want Funny Cide buttons, hats, T-shirts, bobbleheads? Check the Web site. Want Funny Cide beer? Check out Saratoga Springs, N.Y., home to several of the gelding’s owners and you’ll find that one is being developed.

Want to visit Sackets Harbor near Lake Ontario, pop. 1,358? Look for the sign that says: Historic Sackets Harbor. Funny Cide Rules. On to Belmont.

Letters are arriving, too. Hundreds, in fact, Tagg said. Among the latest was one from Penn State, where Tagg earned a degree in animal husbandry.

“Joe Paterno wrote a letter, and he’s somebody I hold in the highest esteem although I never met the man,” Tagg, 65, said of the Penn State football coach.

Saratoga has long been known as racing’s Mecca, but the unofficial headquarters of Funny Cide mania has gone bonkers for the horse born in town at Joe and Anne McMahon’s farm.

When he won the Derby, hundreds of fans jammed into the harness track to watch.

“You could feel the vibrations throughout the whole building,” bartender Ray Topjian said. For the Belmont, “I guarantee the place will be packed.”

The McMahon’s farm has become a landmark. Passing motorists toot their horns. Some stop to chat. “Everybody wants to be a part of him,” Joe McMahon said.

NBC, which will televise the race, along with the New York Racing Association and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association have stepped up promotional efforts.

Knowlton has made countless TV appearances, including one on the BBC. NYRA officials have added 1,500 extra seats at Belmont and are predicting a record crowd that could approach 120,000. Reserved tickets were selling for $700 a pair over the internet.

“We have a horse that’s captured the imagination of the public and not just in New York — in the entire country,” says Bill Nader, senior vice president for NYRA. “He’s sitting on the doorstep of immortality. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

The beauty of Funny Cide is more then just his ability to run. Because of the people surrounding him, he’s truly become a horse of the people.

—Knowlton and his nine other partners are a group of fun-loving fellows — six are high school buddies who eight years ago chipped in $5,000 apiece and formed Sackatoga Stable. One partner, Gus Williams of Saratoga Springs, wears wild-colored sports coats and carries a business card that lists himself as “Professional Italian.” No princes or sheiks in this group.

—Tagg has toiled 32 years as a moderately successful trainer before he found Funny Cide on a farm in Florida. He’s no Bob Baffert or D. Wayne Lukas.

—Smullen is the exercise rider and assistant trainer, and has been Tagg’s girlfriend since their first date in 1997.

—Santos’ career has been reborn after years of problems with drugs and injuries. He also became the sympathetic figure in this tale after questions were raised about a photograph and whether the rider may have carried something other than a whip in his hand while winning the Derby. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Put the pieces together, and it’s easy to see why so many fans will be rooting for Funny Cide to win the Triple Crown.

© 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Good story, CMJ. Thanks :)

[CMJ]

Six of the owners were on the Today Show yesterday. One of'em was flirting hardcore with Katie Couric - it was hysterical.

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

I totally missed that. Ive found since having DirecTV, I rarely watch network anymore :\

[CMJ]

I got this off of ESPN.com - funny, funny stuff.

***********************************

A victory cut short
By Funny Cide
As told to Jim Armstrong (Special to Page 2)


With the Belmont Stakes almost here, I thought I'd take a minute to whinny a little letter to all my fans out there. It's not like I've got anything else to do, if you get my drift. The stable next door, where that hot little chestnut lives, shakes all day long. I'm supposed to get a thrill out of passing road apples and rubbing against the fence in my stall.

I hear everyone is jazzed about this Triple Crown thingie. Great. Glad to hear it. I'm thrilled for you, Slim. But what's in it for me? No wait, let me guess. Another apple. What do I look like, a flippin' algebra teacher? Yo, I've got your apple right here. Unfortunately, that's all I've got right there.

Sammy Sosa is in all kinds of trouble for swinging a corked bat. Hell, I'd like to be swinging any kind of bat. They tell me chicks dig the long balls, but I wouldn't know. I can't even bunt. They told me I was going to the barber one day and, before I knew it, the dude was going Freddy Krueger on me. No wonder he wore a mask over his face. What, would you want a 1,500-pound horse mad at you?

LeBron James has never made a layup, but he gets 90 mill for tying his shoes. That's rich. What do I get, huh? I win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and I can't even get a hearty handshake from that gorgeous gray three stalls down. They say the Derby is the most exciting two minutes in sports. I don't know about that, but it's the most exciting two minutes I'll ever experience.

Mike Tyson can go around attacking women, biting off people's ears and threatening to eat their kids, but did they ever think about doing to him what they did to me? No. And here you thought Rick Carlisle got jobbed by the Pistons.

I know I'm famous and all now, but I have to tell you, some days I get really bummed. I feel like all I'm good for is watering the plants, fertilizing the lawn and keeping the guy with the shovel in a job. Heck, I might as well put flowers in my mane and tiptoe through the damn tulips.

They tell me being gelded is for my own good, of course, that it helps me focus on running. Right. Uh-huh. What am I, stupid? For their own good is more like it. They're the ones cashing those big, old checks after I kick booty on race day. I see them drinking champagne up there in the clubhouse with all the beautiful people. Me? I get a bucket of cold water thrown on me and another friggin' apple shoved down my throat.

Let me tell you something, my man. I'm a nice guy, but one more apple and somebody is going to get kicked where it hurts. Or, in my case, where it doesn't.

You know why I won those two races so easily, don't you? Because I was mad. I'm talking big-time PO'd. You should hear the other horses talk trash to me while we're walking to the post. Empire Maker calls me Sleepy Hollow. God, I hate that guy. Scrimshaw says not to sweat it, that I'll be able to adopt. Even my own stablemates diss me. Yeah, like I want to be shooting pool with a rope.

We call Ten Most Wanted Shorty, but, right about now, I'd give anything to be in his horseshoes. A few more races and he'll spend the rest of his life eating sugar and camping out in some breeding shed in Kentucky. You know why they call them breeding sheds, don't you? Because heaven was already taken. It's not fair, I tell you. The guy couldn't hold my jock if I needed one.

After this weekend, I'll be getting ready for my next race. It's not like I have a choice. My owners plan on running me until I'm 64 or until O.J. 'fesses up, whichever comes later. I'm only exaggerating a little, you know. John Henry won the Santa Anita Handicap when he was 9, and I could have beaten him in my sleep. Which reminds me. When it comes to things to do when the sun goes down, sleep is highly overrated.

Well, I've gotta go now, America. They tell me I need my rest before Saturday's big race. Not! You and I both know I'm going to dust those plowboys without breaking a sweat. I might even go Secretariat on them and lap the field, just to stick it in Empire Maker's grill. I figure, if he gets faced again, they'll make him eat apples for a week.

So what am I going to do then, after I win the Triple Crown? What else?

I'm going to have a cigarette.


Jim Armstrong, a sports columnist for the Denver Post, is a regular contributor to Page 2.
*********************************
:lol

[Taylor Millard]

:lol that IS hysterical

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

:cry

Poor Funny Cide!!

I was almost certain that when the jockey put him out front, he wouldnt win. Dang that Barclay Tagg! Why change tactics for the last race? :shakefist

CMJ, did we forget Seattle Slew? Didnt he win a TC?

[Jinn Fizz]

Rats! :(

I have to admit, I was pulling for Funny Cide...like Lady D, I'm old enough--*ahem* mature enough ;) that I've seen Triple Crown winners in my time. But for it to have been so long, wow, it would have been neat to see another one. Rats x 2! :(

Argh, yeah, when the announcer said that Funny Cide going for the lead early on was a change of tactics, I thought, uh oh! And sure enough, he just got tired out, I think. He's still a great horse, though, and won't be forgotten soon. :)

[CMJ]

Lady Daiquiri I didn't forget Seattle Slew...he won the TC in '77.

I didn't think Santos had much of a choice with tactics. Funny Cide was jacked up and wanted to run. The replays showed Jose fighting to hold the gelding back. I don't think the horse realized he was going a mile and a half.

Man I was nervous before the race. I could feel the tension through the TV screen. I will say Funny Cide will likely not be forgotten. His saga seems to have captured alot of hearts...and seeing as he's not retiring anytime soon - will race for years.

I hope he comes out to California so I can see him in person. I think he's become my favorite horse of all-time these last few weeks(well in contention with Easy Goer at least - that was the first horse I really followed).

Maybe eventually(in my lifetime?) another horse can join the Triple Crown club.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Er, can't he try again next year? I know nothing about horse racing, however, except for what I've seen in National Velvet and The Black Stallion. ;)

But thats too bad, I was hoping he'd win. :cry

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

These races are for 3 year olds. Horses can only race it once in their lifetime.

[CMJ]

Yeah now he has a long future of handicapped racing to look forward to. I believe the Breeders Cup is run at Santa Anita this year...

He'd definitely come west for that I would think.

[CMJ]

Oh by the way here's a list of Triple Crown winners...

1978 Affirmed
1977 Seattle Slew
1973 Secretariat
1948 Citation
1946 Assault
1943 Count Fleet
1941 Whirlaway
1937 War Admiral
1935 Omaha
1930 Gallant Fox
1919 Sir Barton

And here's the list of those with 2 Jewels out of 3. A few of these horses are considered just as great(and in the case of Man O' War greater) as those TC list. In fact for about the first 25 years or so most horses did not run both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness because they were held within days of each other.

Year KD PS BS
1877 Cloverbrook DNS won won
1878 Duke of Magenta DNS won won

1880 Grenada DNS won won
1881 Saunterer DNS won won

1895 Belmar DNS won won

1920 Man o' War DNS won won
1922 Pillory DNS won won
1923 Zev won 12th won

1931 Twenty Grand won 2nd won
1932 Burgoo King won won DNS
1936 Bold Venture won won DNS
1939 Johnstown won 5th won

1940 Bimelech 2nd won won
1942 Shut Out won 5th won
1944 Pensive won won 2nd
1949 Capot 2nd won won

1950 Middleground won 2nd won
1953 Native Dancer 2nd won won
1955 Nashua 2nd won won
1956 Needles won 2nd won
1958 Tim Tam won won 2nd

1961 Carry Back won won 7th
1963 Chateaugay won 2nd won
1964 Northern Dancer won won 3rd
1966 Kauai King won won 4th
1967 Damascus 3rd won won
1968 Forward Pass won* won 2nd
1969 Majestic Prince won won 2nd

1971 Canonero II won won 4th
1972 Riva Ridge won 4th won
1974 Little Current 5th won won
1976 Bold Forbes won 3rd won
1979 Spectacular Bid won won 3rd

1981 Pleasant Colony won won 3rd
1984 Swale won 7th won
1987 Alysheba won won 4th
1988 Risen Star 3rd won won
1989 Sunday Silence won won 2nd

1991 Hansel 10th won won
1994 Tabasco Cat 6th won won
1995 Thunder Gulch won 3rd won
1997 Silver Charm won won 2nd
1998 Real Quiet won won 2nd
1999 Charismatic won won 3rd

2001 Point Given 5th won won
2002 War Emblem won won 8th
2003 Funny Cide won won 3rd

[Charley]

(sniff sniff)

Smells like the knackers, coming right up!

[CMJ]

Hmmm most racehorses lead long and very well. :p

[Daiquiri Van-Derveld]

Wow, CMJ, you did a lot of homework on that post! It was interesting to read! :)

I liked Spectacular Bid, too. Not too many of the others ranked high on my list.

In spite of the fact that he never wont the TC, Man O' War will always be the greatest racehorse in my mind.

'knackers', Charley?

[Charley]

Where you send used up horses, to be turned into glue and dog food.

[CMJ]

Uh huh believe me Funny Cide won't be going there. He's gonna race for years. Empire Maker will be retired to stud at the end of the year most likely - so he's about to be a happy, happy horse for some time. ;)

[Mu Satach]

i luv horseys...

[Charley]

...if it gets cold enough, right?

[CMJ]

I swear Charley sometimes you're more annoying than Jonathan Bowen could ever be.

[Charley]

That cuts pretty deep, man.

[CMJ]

Sometimes I have to resort to a bit of hyperbole to make the point I want to. ;)