Who's Laughing Now?

They came together on memorial day weekend eight years ago, six friends sharing cold beer and picnic food on a backyard deck off Hounsfield Street in their hometown of Sackets Harbor, N.Y., a village of 1,368 on a spit of land at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. They had lived solid, useful lives. None was wealthy, none poor. One of them, a gregarious man named Jackson Knowlton, had recently lost money at the cheap end of the harness-racing business, and in the haze of a long, silly day suggested that perhaps the six of them should kick in $5,000 each and take a crack at the thoroughbred game. Just for fun.

The notion of entering a sport that bankrupts rich men was met with skepticism. "I have a better idea," said Harold Cring, another of the gang. "Why don't we each take $5,000, stuff it into a tin can and bury it here in the backyard? Either way, we're never going to see it again." Yet as the weekend wore on, the thoroughbred scheme took root. The group called its venture Sackatoga Stable, the first half of the name for the hamlet where all of them were raised, the second half for Saratoga Springs, the idyllic upstate New York racing town where Knowlton has lived since 1984, a place where racing dreams are hatched and where anything can seem possible on a cool summer morning. The first horse, purchased for $22,000, was named Sackets Six.

The group gathered again last Saturday in a most improbable place, to watch in astonishment as a three-year-old chestnut gelding named Funny Cide won the 129th running of the Kentucky Derby. In the long shadows of a clear spring afternoon, Funny Cide swept jockey Jose Santos past the twin spires of Churchill Downs and was first under the wire in the maroon and silver Sackatoga silks, designed to honor the colors of the Sackets Harbor Central School Patriots. Funny Cide, who went off at odds of almost 13-1, became the first New York-bred horse and the first gelding in 74 years to win the Derby. He also connected the common man to the sport of kings. For one Saturday, the Derby was Hoosiers.

A year ago, victory in the 1�-mile Kentucky Derby was purchased by a Saudi prince (the late Ahmed bin Salman) who bought War Emblem for nearly $1 million less than three weeks before the Derby. "Everybody buys the Derby?' the prince said after his victory, a statement that was both crass and true. On Saturday, Funny Cide left in his wake the wealthy and privileged. In second place was 5-2 favorite Empire Maker, owned by another Saudi prince (Khalid Abdullah of Juddmonte Farms), dropped from the womb of the most prized broodmare in the world (Toussaud), trained by Bobby Frankel and ridden by Jerry Bailey, both among the elite of their professions. In third was Frankel's Peace Rules, bought in September by wealthy California businessman Edmund A Gann for $350,000; and in fourth Atswhatimtalknbout, bought 15 months ago for $900,000 by Forbes 400 Public Storage magnate B. Wayne Hughes and now owned in part by Steven Spielberg.

Funny Cide has 10 owners who together could not afford to buy fuel for Hughes's private jet. They bought Funny Cide last spring for $75,000, their ninth purchase in eight years. Four of the original Sackets Harbor six together have one $15,000 share (Cring, who owns a construction company; Mark Phillips, a retired math teacher; Mark's brother Pete, a retired utility company worker; J.P. Constance, an optician who in March finished a four-year term as mayor of Sackets Harbor. Larry Reinhardt, another local, also bought in). Another member, Jean Derouin (who hosted the '95 party), was offered a piece but declined "because my wife said, 'No more horses.' " Knowlton, who serves as managing partner of the syndicate, has a full share.

Since Sackatoga's formation, Knowlton has added four more partners. In Louisville, the Funny Cide entourage swelled to more than 50, with rooms at the historic Gait House hotel. One of the new partners, Dave Mahan, a caterer from Watertown, Conn., sought transportation to the track, but he was told that the cost to hire a motor coach would be $3,200. Instead, he lined up a school bus for $1,100. They called it their big yellow stretch limo, and when they left for the track at 10:15 on Saturday, the bus was stocked with Bloody Marys and beer. They persuaded the driver to put $20 on Funny Cide's nose and matched it with $20 of their own, an investment that earned the driver some $400. The winner's share of the Derby was $800,200. "Next time," said Mahan, no doubt looking ahead to the May 17 Preakness, "I guess we can afford the better bus."

They came to watch a horse who had outrun all their expectations. The original Sackatogians had, remarkably, collected few scars from their hobby. "Eight years and I'd say we've just about broken even, which is all we could have asked," says Mark Phillips. Knowlton had hired trainer Barclay Tagg in the spring of 1999 and authorized him to look for modestly priced New York-bred horses to buy. In November 2001 Tagg noticed a yearling for sale at New Episode Training Center in Ocala, Fla., and after several visits he bought the gelding for $75,000. It was a modest price by big-time racing standards, but more than Sackatoga usually paid. The horse's name was Funny Cide because his sire was Distorted Humor and his dam was Belle's Good Cide (a daughter of Slewacide, whose sire was Seattle Slew).

He started his three-year-old season with a rough, fifth-place finish in the Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Florida on Jan. 18. Seven weeks later he finished third behind Peace Rules and Kafwain in the Louisiana Derby (he moved up to second when Kafwain was disqualified), a race in which Funny Cide seemed hopelessly beaten after giving up the lead but made a late charge on the rail. In the April 12 Wood Memorial, Funny Cide was a close second to Empire Maker, but conventional wisdom was that the margin was deceptive because Santos was whipping Funny Cide, while Bailey was mostly hand riding Empire Maker, the heavy favorite. The conservative, 65-year-old Tagg, a horseman beneath the radar for three decades, had tried to talk himself out of taking Funny Cide to Kentucky. "Anytime it looked like the horse wasn't [improving], I was going to get out of it," he says. But Funny Cide kept making a case for himself. His Beyer speed figure in the Wood was a whopping 110, and he came out of the race fresh and hungry.

While Derby week hype focused on various Empire Maker storylines (How bad was his bruised right front foot? Can he win the Triple Crown? Will Frankel finally get a Derby?), Tagg kept Funny Cide in New York until three days before the race. The horse ripped through two fast workouts at Belmont, and in the second, four days before the Derby, he went five furlongs in 59 seconds flat and exercise rider-assistant trainer Robin Smullen could scarcely pull him up two furlongs later. There was another sign: Tagg suspects that as a weanling Funny Cide was ill with pneumonia, so at times he wears an inhalator on his nose to ensure clean, moist air. In the weeks leading to the Derby, his breathing seemed to improve by the day.

Yet a bad trip in the Derby can crush even a fit horse; Funny Cide's was a dream. After bumping with Offlee Wild out of the gate, Funny Cide cruised behind Brancusi and Peace Rules down the backstretch, took the lead on the far turn and won comfortably, by 1� lengths. His time of 2:01.19 was the 10th fastest in Derby history. It was a professional ride by Santos, one of the most sought-after riders from the mid-'80s through the late '90s. But between '97 and 2002 he had changed agents four times and hadn't ridden in the Derby since '99.