Funny Cide's Owners Atypical

S A C K E T S  H A R B O R, N.Y., June 6 -- — Funny Cide could make history on Saturday by becoming the first horse in 25 years to win the Triple Crown in thoroughbred racing — but his owners will always be a group of regular guys.

In 1995, high school friends Pete and Mark Phillips, Jackson Knowlton, J.P. Constance, Harold Cring and Larry Reinhardt were — for the most part — the unlikeliest of race horse owners. Most of them did not know anything about the sport. Pete Phillips had never been to a track before, didn't know anything about thoroughbreds and had never bet on horse racing.

With a decade of racing harness horses in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Knowlton was the only one who knew about horse racing and he convinced his friends to join him his new thoroughbred racing venture. They would only have to invest $5,000 each in their first horse.

Cring cringed, saying that he would rather put the money in a tin can and bury it in his backyard. Now, eight years later, Cring and his friends are the owners of the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby and perhaps the next Triple Crown winner and they stand to make tens of thousands of dollars.

"I think pretty much I've been forced to eat my words," Cring said.

Modest Luxuries

The six friends paid $17,500 for their first horse and named him Sackets Six, after Sackets Harbor, the New York village boasting a population of less than 1,400. Sackets Six won three races and a little more than $100,000 — just enough to pay some of his owners' bills. In 1999, they bought Funny Cide for $75,000.

Cring, the Phillips brothers, Knowlton, Constance, and Reinhardt have been dubbed the "Sackatoga Six" following Funny Cide's victories this year at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. However, Funny Cide has four other, less-known owners: retiree Augustine "Gus" Williams, caterer David Mahan, Eric Dattner, a retired mechanical engineer, and health-care executive Lew Titterton.

If the gelding — a castrated horse — wins the Belmont Stakes Saturday, he will join legendary Triple Crown winners such as Secretariat, Citation, Whirlaway, Seattle Slew and Affirmed. But even if they become a part of thoroughbred racing history, the Sackatoga Six say they won't splurge their winnings.