Knowlton recalls Funny Cide’s big wins
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Jack Knowlton sees raindrops falling outside his office window and thinks back to the sloppy track Funny Cide ran on when trying to win the Triple Crown.
Fifteen years ago, the New York-bred colt, and his littleknown ownership group, took the sports world by storm with a surprise Kentucky Derby win followed by a smashing 10-length victory in the Preakness Stakes.
The next three weeks leading up to the Belmont Stakes was a madhouse of excitement as fans worldwide waited to see if Funny Cide could become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed, 25 years earlier. But poor weather played a major role in the outcome, a third-place finish behind Empire Maker and Ten Most Wanted, which had skipped the Preakness and were both running on fresher legs.
“I tell people I’ll go to my grave wondering what would have happened if it didn’t rain that day,” said Knowlton, Sackatoga Stable’s managing partner. “Funny Cide did not like that racetrack. It was just rank. That’s why the Triple Crown is so hard to win and it took 37 years for American Pharoah to get one. Everything has to go perfectly.”
Knowlton has attended every “Run for the Roses” since 2003 and he’ll be at Pimlico this weekend to see if Justify can come one step closer to becoming the next Triple Crown champion.
“He’s already beaten the ‘Curse of Apollo’ going back to 1882, for not running as a 2-yearold,” Knowlton said. “We’ll see.”
Either way, it’s an experience Justify’s owners including Starlight Racing principal Jack Wolf, a part-time Spa City resident, will never forget.
“Anybody who wins the Derby is treated like gold at the Preakness,” Knowlton said. “Anything you want, you got it. We had our own tent in the infield, the best seats in the house for the race. Fortunately, Funny Cide did his thing and won by 10 lengths. It was one of the biggest routs in Preakness history.”
Prior to the race, many fans were skeptical about Funny Cide’s true ability. Derby runnerup Empire Maker had been touted as a possible Triple Crown winner. Some said Funny Cide had stolen the Derby, especially following a bogus Miami Herald report alleging that jockey Jose Santos had used an electronic device to make the colt run faster.
But Santos was absolved of all wrongdoing and in Knowlton’s words, went to the Preakness “with a huge chip on his shoulder,” feeling he had some-
thing to prove, which he and Funny Cide did.
The margin of victory was the second-largest in Preakness history.
“You’ve got to win the Preakness to keep the dream alive,” Knowlton said. “He did it in such a big way, there was all kinds of hope and hooplah about Funny Cide, just incredible excitement about going back to Belmont with a New York-bred, with a chance to win the Triple Crown and a $5 million Visa bonus. We were the toast of the town. Mayor Bloomberg had an event for us the night before the Belmont.”
Things didn’t turn out as hoped for, but there’s no doubt Funny Cide’s legacy is secure for all time. He’s still the only New York-bred colt, born at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, to capture the Derby. His winning time (2:01.19) was the 10th fastest ever, which no horse has matched since.
Knowlton had moved to Saratoga Springs in 1984 and was involved with harness racing for nearly a dozen years, most notably as part owner of Sunset Blue, Saratoga Raceway’s 1993 Horse of the Year. But a 1994 horseman’s strike closed the track, so the group sold its stable of standardbreds.
The next year, during a Memorial Day reunion with more beer than barbecue, someone raised the idea of buying shares in a thoroughbred. The group was comprised of Knowlton and five high school buddies from Sackets Harbor — a small town on eastern Lake Ontario.
“The six of us paid $5,000 each,” he said. “We named our first horse Sackets Six. Then we bought a few other horses along the way and added four new partners.”
They passed over Funny Cide at a Fasig-Tipton New York-bred yearling sale in Saratoga, and purchased another horse instead. But life gave the group a second chance, as they bought him the next year with money from a horse they put in a claiming race.
“It’s kind of ironic, but we got into racing hoping to win a race at Saratoga,” Knowlton said. “We won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness before we won a race at Saratoga.”
Aside from his heroic on-track feats, Funny Cide’s greatest achievement was showing that little guys, without a great deal of money, can compete against the sport’s most legendary names.
“With a lot of horses winning big races today there are multiple owners or syndicates involved, and sometimes multiple syndicates,” Knowlton said. “Whether you own one percent, 50 percent or 100 percent, you’re an owner of a horse that won the Kentucky Derby. It’s a big deal. The same thing with the Preakness or Belmont. The bottome line is, if you really like thoroughbred racing and want to get the utmost excitement, and are of relatively modest means, there are all kinds of opportunities out there to buy a share in a horse or horses, and you just might get lucky. You never know.”