By: Jackson Liu

A commonly storied horse, Funny Cide, died this week at the age of 23. Small in body size, this spirited chestnut horse wasn’t recognized by anyone when he first started racing at the Kentucky Derby in 2003. Funny Cide raced against 12 other horses during the race. A New York bred horse like Funny Cide has never won any big races before. But, when that race started, Funny Cide ran strong. “I could not believe my eyes,” one of Funny Cides co-owners, Harold Cring, said in an interview with North Country Public Radio in 2007. “That’s our horse out front. I kept waiting for something to fall apart.”

Funny Cide went on to win the race, and it was a life altering moment for his owners who were high school friends who had a hobby of horse racing and are from Sackets Harbor in northern New York. At first, many people thought Funny Cider winning was just an unexpected stroke of luck. But, two weeks later at the Preakness Stakes, Funny Cide won again. In the end, Funny Cide wasn’t able to win again, but he got second place. By the time Funny Cide retired later in 2007, he had won his owners nearly 3.5 million.