Belmont Stakes Wagering - Trainer Tagg Returns to Belmont as Spoiler

[Shame About Ray]

Trainer Barclay Tagg was so close, oh so close, to winning the Belmont Stakes in 2003. The horse he saddled, Funny Cide, was a media darling having been the first gelding to win the Kentucky Derby since Clyde van Dusen in 1929. Just three weeks before the 2003 Belmont Stakes, Funny Cide had dominated his rivals in the Preakness Stakes by something like 11 lengths. There was no doubt in Tagg’s mind that his horse had a chance to win the Belmont Stakes and to make history by being the first horse to win the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1979.

Then, in what was supposed to be nothing more then a maintenance work, Funny Cide ran his eye-balls out - - too hard, too fast - - and the word began to spread that Funny Cide might be over the top. When the gates actually opened for the 2003 Belmont Stakes, just a few days after Funny Cide’s blistering work, everybody watching that day knew from the outset that the race was over. Funny Cide wasn’t going to win the Belmont Stakes. He was in the deepest part of the Belmont strip, the rail, and looked to be spinning his wheels in the mud. It had rained for three days straight before the 2003 Belmont Stakes and even though there was nothing in Funny Cide’s pedigree that said he wouldn’t like the mud, there was nothing in his pedigree that said he would relish it either. Mudders are usually individuals as it is. You never know how they will run until they actually do it.

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