Funny Cide Jenkins, Sally and Funny Cide Ventures, LLC

Description: Amazon.com Review It sounds like a Hollywood movie script. In 2003, an unknown gelding named Funny Cide came out of nowhere to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, shocking the horseracing establishment and thrilling racing fans around the world. It wasn't just the horse that was so unusual, but the entire team: the owners were ten businessmen and laborers, six of which were childhood friends from a tiny New York town, with much more enthusiasm than experience; the trainer was a capable veteran of 30 years who, despite his skill, had endured a long series of disappointments; and the jockey, a battered 42-year-old who had "been up and down so many times, he needed a seasick remedy," had tasted victory before, but never expected it to come again. How such a group made it to the winner's circle is a touching and exhilarating story that Sally Jenkins, co-author of Lance Armstrong's It's not About the Bike, conveys with warmth and excitement. Along with inside information about the peculiarities of breeding and raising horses and the background on Funny Cide's owners, trainers, and jockey, Jenkins offers entertaining insight into the culture of horseracing. In particular, she makes much of the collision between Funny Cide's middle class owners and the rich bluebloods who dominate the sport. She notes with obvious pleasure how they traveled by yellow school bus rather than in expensive cars or limousines and how they couldn't even find the winner's circle at the Derby. She also shows how their original underdog status also worked wonders for the sport by captivating the public and providing a classic long-odds story that is hard to resist. Funny Cide captures this spirit well making it an enjoyable read from start to finish. --Shawn Carkonen Product Description Describes how an unheralded New York horse--trained by a journeyman, ridden by a hard-luck jockey, and owned by a tiny stable founded by a group of high-school buddies from Sackets Harbor--beat the champions and their multimillionaire owners to sweep to the brink of the Triple Crown. 250,000 first printing. From Publishers Weekly In May 2003, a relatively unknown racehorse named Funny Cide won the Kentucky Derby, then two weeks later won the Preakness, the first two events in horse racing's legendary Triple Crown. Jenkins, a skilled sportswriter and author of two books with cyclist Lance Armstrong (It's Not About the Bike; Every Second Counts) delivers a first-rate account of the improbable Funny Cide story, aided by her access to its main players, including the horse's owners, a group of longtime buddies from the small town of Sackets Harbor, N.Y. The book is at its liveliest showing them in action, especially when their unpretentious excitement subverts the wealthy elegance of the Kentucky Derby. But Jenkins does her book a disservice by trying to present the Funny Cide story as metaphoric as that told in Laura Hillenbrand's instant classic, Seabiscuit. Despite Jenkins's best efforts to show otherwise, 2003 is not 1938, the Iraq War isn't the Depression and Funny Cide's breeders, owners and trainers are from "the vast middle class in horse racing," making them closer to "Sheiks and Bluebloods" than to the working class. Still, Jenkins never lets her broad cultural swipes get in the way of delivering a sprightly and entertaining tale of a lovable winner from nowhere. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist There is a natural tendency, mostly avoided by Jenkins if not by this book's prepublication publicity, to reshape the story of Funny Cide into the rags-to-riches mold of Seabiscuit. It doesn't really fit, but the story of Funny Cide, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner of 2002, is dramatic enough on its own merits. And like the story of Seabiscuit, it is inextricably intertwined with the stories of the horse's no-nonsense trainer, his aging jockey, and his ow

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Location: Jacksonville, Florida

End Time: 2024-12-08T04:55:35.000Z

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