By: Kaydence Yung

Funny Cide was one of the most famous horses in thoroughbred history. He died on July 16, 2023, at the age of 23 at a farm in Kentucky from complications linked to Colic. He won many races, including the Kentucky Derby in 2003 and Preakness Stakes year?. When Funny Cide first entered the Kentucky Derby, he was not well known nor highly favored. His owners were a group of high school friends from a tiny town called Sacketts Harbor in Northern New York, who were partying one night and just decided to buy a horse.

The win at Kentucky seemed like a fluke because the victory was widely portrayed as a feel-good story about a blue-collar horse owned by a bunch of small-town guys who just got lucky. Harold Crig, one of Funny Cide’s co-owners said, “I could not believe my eyes, that’s our horse out front. I kept waiting for something to fall apart.” But, two weeks later at the Preakness Stakes, Cide won again by almost ten lengths. Funny Cide couldn’t capture the Triple Crown though. A larger and more elite thoroughbred called Empire Maker won the Belmont Stakes that year.

When Funny Cide retired in 2007, he had made more than $3.5 million dollars for his owners. In an interview with NPR Jon Constance, one of the horse’s owners and also the village’s former mayor, “Funny Cide just loved to run,” said Jon Constance, who was one of. Constance continued, “He loved to get out there and loved to show the rest of them. He might have been small, but he was powerful.” He also said many of Funny Cide’s owners still live together in the village.

Funny Cide spent the last 15 years of his life on a horse farm in Kentucky before passing away from problems linked to colic. Constance and Funny Cide’s other owners all live on Funny Cide Drive, which was named after him because of his many wins.