Funny Cide

Funny Cide (April 20, 2000 – July 16, 2023) was an American Thoroughbred champion racehorse who won the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He was the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby. He was a popular horse and remained a fan favorite in retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park. Background Funny Cide was bred at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, but was foaled at the McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbred Farm, owned by Joe and Anne McMahon in Saratoga Springs, New York. His sire is Distorted Humor, who was then an unproven sire at WinStar, struggling to attract good mares. Belle's Good Cide, an Oklahoma-bred granddaughter of Seattle Slew, was already at the farm, and was therefore bred to him. She was then shipped to New York so her foal would be eligible for New York-bred races. Funny Cide was part of Distorted Humor's first American crop when his stud fee was $12,500, dropping down the next year to $10,000. Due to the success of Funny Cide and the rest of his first crop, Distorted Humor's fee then rose to $20,000 in 2003. It would eventually go as high as $300,000 in 2008 for a live foal. The fee later dropped, and in 2018 was $50,000. Funny Cide was consigned to the August 2001 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga-preferred yearling auction, where he was inspected by Tony Everard, a "pinhooker" looking for young, undeveloped horses to train and resell in a few months at a profit. Everard liked what he saw, even though the colt was a ridgling with one undescended testicle, and purchased the colt for $22,000. Everard then took the colt to his New Episode Training Center in Ocala, Florida, and made the decision to geld the colt. "With ridglings, it's better to go ahead and geld them early," he would later say. "My experience is once they start training around turns they are moving faster and getting pinched and it hurts them."