Funny Cide

Racehorse

A chestnut gelding, Funny Cide won the first two legs of horse racing's 2003 Triple Crown. Funny Cide was the first gelding to win the Kentucky Derby since Clyde Van Dusen did it in 1929, and the first New York-bred horse ever to win the race. He won the Kentucky Derby by nearly 2 lengths over the favorite, Empire Maker, in a time of 2:01.19, on 3 May 2003. Just two weeks later, on 17 May, he won the Preakness Stakes by 9.75 lengths with a time of 1:55.61. The win set him up to run in the Belmont Stakes on 7 June, in an attempt to become the first horse since Affirmed (in 1978) to win the Triple Crown. But he finished third at the Belmont, being beaten by Empire Maker and Ten Most Wanted.

Extra credit: The name Funny Cide is a play on the names of the horse's sire and dam, Distorted Humor and Belle's Good Cide... He was gelded because he was a "ridgling," born with one testicle undescended.... He ran at 12-1 in the Kentucky Derby, paying $27.60 for a $2 bet... In the Preakness he ran at 2-1, paying $5.80 for a $2 bet... He is owned by Sackatoga Stables, started by a small group of former high school buddies who pooled their money to buy race horses. In 2004 the owners, working with writer Sally Jenkins, published the book Funny Cide: How a Horse, a Trainer, a Jockey, and a Bunch of High School Buddies Took on the Sheiks and Bluebloods ... and Won.

Other famous horses: Secretariat, Seabiscuit, Phar Lap and Bucephalus.