Kentucky Horse Park unveils Funny Cide statue, honoring beloved Derby champion

The Kentucky Horse Park gave Funny Cide a lasting place among racing’s greats on Thursday, unveiling a statue at the Hall of Champions barn where the gelding spent 15 years greeting fans after his career ended. The tribute landed as more than decoration. It fixed in bronze the story of a horse that became one of the sport’s most recognizable names, not just for what he won, but for how he won over the public.

Funny Cide was the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby, and he did it in 2003 at nearly 13-1 odds. Two weeks later, he ran away with the Preakness Stakes by more than nine lengths, becoming the 30th horse to sweep the first two jewels of the Triple Crown. Foaled on April 20, 2000, by Distorted Humor out of Belle’s Good Cide, he finished his career with 11 wins, six seconds and eight thirds from 38 starts and earned $3,529,412 before retiring in 2007.

That kind of record would make any horse memorable. Funny Cide became something rarer because his ownership story felt open and reachable, with Sackatoga Stable and co-founder Jack Knowlton at the center of it. The yellow school bus that carried the owners to the Derby became part of the legend, a symbol that helped turn a New York-bred gelding into a national favorite at Churchill Downs and beyond.

After retirement, Funny Cide moved to the Kentucky Horse Park in 2008 and joined the Hall of Champions, where he remained one of the park’s most popular residents. Visitors knew him as an ambassador for the sport, a horse whose celebrity never faded because he seemed to belong to the fans as much as to the record book. He died in 2023, but his presence at the park had already become part of the daily rhythm of the place.

The new statue was created by equine sculptor Shelley Hunter, whose work also includes the Alysheba and John Henry bronzes in the park’s Memorial Walk of Champions. The addition gives Funny Cide a permanent place among those legends, and for New York racing it adds another marker to a legacy that still matters: a horse from modest beginnings who carried a region’s hopes, then kept carrying the sport’s memory long after the roses had faded.