Funny
Cide: How a Horse, a Trainer, a Jockey, and a
Bunch of High School Buddies Took on the Sheiks
and Blue Bloods ... and Won
By: Sally Jenkins (Contributor), the Funny Cide
Team, Funny Cide Team, LLC Funny Cide Ventures
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They had no business being there.
They were up against million-dollar horses owned
by
patricians and oilmen and Arab sheiks and
Hollywood producers.
They were ten working-class men,
and all they wanted was to win a race.
In 2003, a three-year-old with an irrepressible
personality and the unlikely name of Funny Cide
became the peoples horse, the unheralded New
Yorkbred gelding whoin a time of war and
economic jittersinspired a nation by knocking off
the champions and their multimillionaire owners
and sweeping to the brink of the Triple Crown.
Trained by a journeyman who had been kicking
around racing for more than thirty years looking
for the one, but refusing to compromise his
standards; ridden by a tough-luck jockey fighting
to regain his position after years of injuries and
hard knocks; and owned by a tiny stable founded by
a band of high school buddies from Sackets Harbor,
N.Y. (pop: 1,386) who tossed in a few thousand
dollars each to follow their dream, Funny Cide
became a blue-collar hero with a bit, his story
crammed with colorful charactersonly one of whom
happened to be a horse.
Written with Sally Jenkins, co-author of Lance
Armstrongs Its Not About the Bike, FUNNY CIDE
tells the whole storythe parts we knew and the
parts we never suspected; the shocks, twists, and
bursts of sheer joyas it follows the groups
emotional ups and downs against overwhelming odds,
illness, even scandal, to capture the imaginations
of millions. It is a story of loyalty, hard work,
and trust; of friendship and resilience; of men
and women staying true to themselves above all. It
is a book for the underdog in all of usa new
American classic.
Sackatoga Stable is owned by ten people, led by
managing partner Jackson Knowlton, whose jobs
range from catering to construction to health
care. Unlike Funny Cides million-dollar brethren,
who make a quick killing and then get retired to
stud, their horse will race for all his fans to
see as long as he is healthy and happyconceivably
for years to come.
SALLY JENKINS, an award-winning journalist for The
Washington Post, is the coauthor of two books with
Lance Armstrong, including Every Second Counts,
and of bestselling books with Dean Smith, Pat
Summitt, and Marla Runyan. She lives in New York
City.
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