[AP photo]
Assistant trainer Robin Smullen rides Funny Cide, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, alongside trainer Barclay Tagg.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The convergence of story lines has sent the lives of 13 dreamers spinning in a ferocious cyclone.
But it's calm in the center. Simple.
While the 10 middle-class owners of Sackatoga Stable, trainers Barclay Tagg and Robin Smullen and jockey Jose Santos consider themselves fortunate to have won the first two legs of the Triple Crown, they are cursed with the human ability to worry, to second-guess, to doubt.
Funny Cide, the chestnut who prompted a nation to ask "What's a gelding?" got a much better deal. He just wants to run fast. Now.
"He's anxious," said Smullen, who has struggled to contain Funny Cide's exuberance during morning workouts. "Since he won the Derby, he seems to enjoy all this stuff. The great ones have a certain personality about them, and he seems to know this is all about him."
Funny Cide, at one point the 1-9 favorite, will aim his ego and aggression toward history today at Belmont Park. Breaking from the fourth post in a six-horse field, he can become the 12th to win the Triple Crown with a victory in the 11/2-mile, $1-million Belmont Stakes.
Funny Cide would be the first gelding and first New York-bred to win the Triple Crown, accomplishing the feat 30 years after Secretariat and 25 after the last Triple Crown, by Florida-bred Affirmed.
Perhaps he's lucky he doesn't know how much this means.
"This means everything," said Tagg, 65, who had never entered a Triple Crown race before this year. "I've been doing this a long time. All these people that work for me have been doing this every day, seven days a week for a long time."
Jack Knowlton, managing partner of Sackatoga Stable, has watched his life barrel roll since the $75,000 gelding won the Kentucky Derby. The calls to his office once were about health care consulting. Now they're from writers pitching biographies and screenplays.
"This has been just an unbelievable time for us," Knowlton said. "Stuff you never thought could happen. Someone asked me the other day who I would want to play me in the movie. I just read my horse magazines. I don't have any time to worry about anything like that."
But six weeks before the release of the cinematic adaption of Laura Hillenbrand's book about Seabiscuit, Funny Cide's story has virtually stolen the script, radiating human interest stories that are fascinating serious and casual racing fans.
Pick your favorite. There's an ownership group composed mostly of 50-something high school friends from tiny Sackets Harbor, N.Y., among them a retired teacher and electric company worker. The old-fashioned, dry-witted trainer who has slogged around Northeast tracks for 30 years with only local level success.
A jockey who upon winning the biggest race of his life is accused of cheating and captures the sympathy of the nation with his redemption. Funny Cide's mother, Belle's Good Cide, died in March.
Then there's the fascination with the fact Funny Cide was gelded.
The beauty of this Triple Crown attempt, unlike that of War Emblem last year, is it feels more like a coronation than a commencement. The lure of millions of dollars in breeding revenues often is too enticing for owners to keep name-recognizable Triple Crown runners on the track for long.
With no such capabilities, Funny Cide could, health permitting, lend his name to what the industry hopes is a resurgence in interest. As a Triple Crown winner, he could have far more impact than Cigar or geldings such as John Henry and five-time horse of the year Kelso.
"You have the equivalent, from a marketer's standpoint, of a perfect storm," said Tim Smith, president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.
There are perils, however.
Empire Maker, favored in the Derby but a third-place finisher, has been training at Belmont Park since early May, and trainer Bobby Frankel wants desperately to prove his horse is better.
Then there is the question of distance. Although Funny Cide looked feisty and strong in winning the Preakness by 93/4 lengths, the 11/2-mile Belmont constitutes a withering distance. Most horses will never run that far again, and Funny Cide's sire, Distorted Humor, was more successful as a sprinter.
Devilish details, but this long shot consortium has cleared such obstacles for six weeks. They don't question it anymore. They work and hope as hard or harder than they did before and ride a horse that wants to run. Fast.
"I don't know if I believe in destiny or fate," Smullen said. "It is a little bit strange how things have fallen into place. But you can't win the Triple Crown if you don't believe you can."
