129TH KENTUCKY DERBY

May 3, 2003

Jack Knowlton

Jose Santos

Jose Santos, Jr.

Barclay Tagg

JOSE A. SANTOS: I always have a dream to win the Kentucky Derby. I always -- I standing up and look at the crowd and go like this. Today came true. Thanks to Barclay Tagg, the owner of Funny Cide and Funny Cide of course. And I mean, I have a strong feeling about this horse after he run the Wood because he run a strong second. He was beat by a strong horse in Empire Maker but he was making a strong effort to catch this horse in the last 16th of a mile. And I say to myself next time when we are going to man (sic) in the quarter the only thing they want to do for this horse is going to be good because he just keep going, keep going and today I was in perfect position in the race. He broke real clean and I have perfect treatment come out on the backside back stretch 3/8 pole. I feel very strong because I know he can go to a mile and a quarter and he keep digging and digging. Last he switched a little bit then left-hand and right-hand he kept going at the same pace. He did it. The only thing -- I will be very thankful because this horse is amazing. It's a first New York Bred that come a long way and win the Kentucky Derby. I am very proud to come with a horse from New York, a trainer from New York, the owner, they can't be from New York because they are from Sackatoga. It's a special group today to win the Kentucky Derby.

JOSE A. SANTOS: I think when he finished second behind Empire Maker, Empire Maker was all out. The trainer and the jockey said they not want to squeeze the lemon but the lemon was pretty dry there. I mean, it's a great horse. This is a very difficult race. Sometimes the best horse cannot win the race, the Kentucky Derby, but today Funny Cide was the best horse in the raise.

JOSE A. SANTOS: Around the 3/8 pole when we were still in the last turns and when I call my horse again and hit him a couple of times and he never quit. He keep digging and digging. He was not accelerating but he went the same pace, and looked like Bobby Frankel's horse wanted to go by him, but there was just a matter of a little bit of distance and there when I get tight Funny Cide will keep going.

JOSE A. SANTOS: This is my son, Jose Junior. Looking for my junior here to keep the tradition.

JOSE SANTOS, JR.: Wow. (Laughter).

JOSE A. SANTOS: The second question: Jose is going to be nine July 21st. And if I ever think this day would come, yes, I did. I was in the Kentucky Derby the first time when Secretariat run and then I don't watch the Kentucky Derby for a long time until Steve win. (Inaudible) I was in Columbia then. At that time I was 18 years old and I say one day I want to be there and since then I always have the image to win the Kentucky Derby. And today it was the day.

JOSE A. SANTOS: Well, you have to respect Barclay Tagg. He's a very strict guy. He's like to everything to like old-timer, you can say, he don't look old but I know he's old (laughs), anyway he's a wonderful trainer. You only see the rough side of Barclay Tagg, but he's a nice man. He is capable to train any horses from behind. A guy to win a Kentucky Derby with a New York bred, he had to know what he's doing. And I think Barclay Tagg is one of the top 10.

JOSE A. SANTOS: Well, they don't give it too much of a chance, but I don't think they put too much attention in my pony neither in Funny Cide. Last Tuesday Funny Cide work at Belmont Park and he worked a 58 and 2 and looked like he was just galloping. I saw him after the work and he don't lose an ounce. He looks probably better after he work and I have to thank to Robin, the assistant trainer, and she's the one that was exercising this horse all the time, and she did a wonderful job with the horse. He was a little bit difficult first when he arrived to the barn of Barclay Tagg and now he's a great horse. He's a wonderful horse.

JOSE A. SANTOS: No, I was in Chile I was just a little kid then in 1973.

JOSE A. SANTOS: Yeah, pretty much, I mean, I was in a very small town. I was winning a lot of races but I was not making money. Then I have a contract to go to Columbia and I was making $200 a month which was a lot of money for me in 1979 to 1981. Then, my God, when I watched our friend win everything because I put my mind to come to America I was looking for a dream and here was my dream.

JOSE A. SANTOS: Well, like I mentioned before Barclay Tagg is a real good trainer and I am pretty sure he's going to do the best for his horse and he trained for many years in Pimlico, he knows everything about the track over there just have to listen his advice. I mean, he knows better than me the track. I am pretty sure about the horse:

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I came in actually late Tuesday night, planned on coming in on Wednesday and they changed the procedure for the post position draw. I said I better get here just to see what is going on. We did that and we are extraordinarily fortunate we had the second choice, talked with Jose, talked with Barclay and ended up deciding that the 6th post was a nice place. We did say maybe somebody would get scratched, it did happen. So we are happy we didn't get the 4 or the 5.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: It's a thrill beyond belief, as I said, we are the little guys in the game and for me it's just so rewarding that everybody who dreams of owning a horse or owns a horse or two or five horses, can look at what we have accomplished and it's really the horse that's accomplished, it's Barclay and Robin and Jose. But it's like the lottery. It is a dollar and a dream. Barclay found this horse for us. It was at a price level that we could afford, $75,000, private purchase in Ocala. Little did we ever know when he got to the races his first race, he did well. Next race he wins by the small stakes in New York. (Inaudible). We said we have a really nice horse, some pressure to go to the Breeder's Cup. Barclay, thank goodness, wasn't tempted to do that. He held us back, and said look, let's wait. I think this horse has got a shot to get on the Derby trail next year. Let's be conservative with him. We followed his lead. He subsequently ran three weeks later, $100,000 stake just before the Breeder's Cup and then put him on the shelf. Our plan all along was to run in the Wood Memorial. We backed up from there and setting forward what we were going to do in terms of races. Terrible post in the Holy Bull in Florida. Still we felt it was strong enough to take him forward to Louisiana. Ran in the Louisiana Derby and here we are winning the Derby. He ran behind two tremendous horses in the Louisiana Derby and in the Wood. Peace Rules beat us in Louisiana. Empire Maker beat us in the Wood. We beat them today when it really counted.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: It's just indescribable. I am still -- I have been living a dream here for three weeks. When he raced as well as he did in the Wood then it became real that we were going to be running in the Derby. I was counting the days hoping beyond hope something wasn't going to happen. I have seen so many horses get so close, something happens along the way. Fortunately Barclay and Robin just did a fabulous job in getting him here, and obviously had him ready to run. There were people and we knew what was going to happen. They were going to criticize Barclay for the way he was doing it. We have 110% faith in him, had it before. Now it's probably about a thousand percent faith because he has pulled off something that most people wouldn't believe could be done. We had two strikes against us, New York-bred, we were gelding and we beat those two odds today.

BARCLAY TAGG: Very excited of course and very thankful. So many things go wrong in this game all the time that to have everything go right week after week after week and it finally comes to this well it's just a blessing.

BARCLAY TAGG: Yes, I mean, Jose and I liked him very much from the get-go. But there were so many doubters and none of the Sackatoga people, they were wonderful they truly were, they just went along with everything I wanted to do and I know a couple of times that might have made them a little bit angry but they did it anyway. They were great, just super. That's what you need to get a horse to go in one direction. And he just proved it little by little by little to me, but it was enough to keep on the trails. So we did and it worked out and it's probably just plain lucky.

BARCLAY TAGG: Well, I usually do the same thing I do every other day, work all morning and then run horses in the afternoon, if I have horses to run in the afternoon. And make sure I watch the Derby, though. (Laughs). I have watched it on television since 1953. That's when we got our first TV.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: We started Sackatoga Stable, five high school friends and myself. Subsequently after our first horse we had other partners come in, we basically have five shares in Funny Cide. There are three shareholders who own a full share, two split a share and my old high school friends split a share.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: The other shareholders, Gus D'Agostino; David Mahan from Watertown, Connecticut, Lou Titterton from Saratoga Springs (all phonetic spellings) and Eric Datner from Great Neck, Long Island split a share. My five friends from high school Harold Crane, Peter Phillips, Mark Phillips, John Constance, and I am leaving out somebody here, Larry Rheinheart who wasn't able to make it here. We had nine of the 10 owners that made it here today. Larry didn't make it. He had been on a class trip for two weeks and couldn't get down here: It's Sackatoga High School. The end of Eastern Lake, Ontario, 60 miles north of Syracuse, New York.

BARCLAY TAGG: I had noticed a couple of races when they got ahead of him or when they really came to him that he would come back and try harder. And contrary to what a lot of my friends kept telling me they didn't think he would be able to go a distance, I thought -- I was hoping of course, mostly but I thought this extra eighth of a mile and a good strong rider like Jose might turn the tables there. And just fortunately it worked.

BARCLAY TAGG: Oh, well, I know they really wanted to go to the Texas race which I didn't. But the horse had some problems with a slight lung infection and a throat infection; things like that which kept us away from there. Anyway so it took the heat off of me a little bit that way. And just I kind of wanted to run in the Remsen (ph). Just little things like that. There was no really consternation or anything like that about it. I wanted to freshen things and put him on the Derby trail. You don't find many horses of this caliber. I have been around a lot of horses, but every now and then one will really, really stand out and I was pretty sure about him, and we just had to give him a chance. I would have stopped at any time that I had an excuse to, but he had that terrible race in the Holy Bull but he finished so strongly I heard some comments from some people that I had a lot of faith that his numbers were very good and the numbers they took on him were very good, things like that, so it kept me going forward. Then I originally wanted to run through the three Florida races, but Jack asked me to go to the Louisiana race. I thought that that might be more prudent in a lot of ways because it would give him a little more time between the Holy Bull and the next race, and it would give him a little more time between that the Louisiana race and the New York race whereas if we went to those three I really wanted to run him in New York too because I like to support New York and New York has always been good to me. For 15 years they have treated me well. I wanted to run him in the Wood Memorial. That was just kind of a personal thing I wanted to do too. They were good enough to go along with that when we decided on these three races the timing fit very, very well before we came here, gave him three races. There was plenty of rest in between and he fortunately improved on each race and it just set him up well for this and it all worked out perfectly. This past couple of weeks everything has gone like a charm for him just not one single feather got in his path. It worked out perfectly. We were just lucky but the whole plan just came together. That's all.

BARCLAY TAGG: He had had a very hard race in the Wood Memorial. I thought Jose had to ride him very, very hard. We only had three weeks from that race to this race. In ordinary circumstances I think three weeks is plenty for a horse between races, but against this caliber of horse, against the caliber of horse he ran against last time and tried so hard and caliber of horses he was going to meet now, three weeks isn't very much. I didn't want to stick him right on a van and maybe knock him out a little bit more. I thought I'd keep him in his own stall and own grounds and just train him up to the races as close as we could get him down here and run him. We only jogged him. Didn't do too much. One mile one day and two miles the next day. Jogged him once around this morning. He never had a gallop on the track or anything like that.

BARCLAY TAGG: Well, we go to Ocala or when we go to Florida every winter we stop in Ocala whenever. I buy some yearlings I usually base them with Tony Everhard (phonetic) in Ocala. He breaks them for me; gets them ready to run. I always look for horses there because he has a slew of them there all the time, and he deals with medium expensive horses, you know, and we were trying to keep the price down and the quality up the best we could, and I saw this horse and Robin and I saw him -- I guess it was like in the end of November, somewhere around there -- we were on our way down, and we noticed him again when we made a trip up during the winter, and noticed him again in the spring. We liked him every time, and we didn't think the price was outlandish. The price went up every time we saw him. But we didn't think it was outlandish we thought it was a workable price and it just turned out really well. So we just bought him and we had to get through some minor problems with him earlier but as it worked out, it gave him a little longer to mature and it worked out really good. Everything just went perfectly for this horse.

BARCLAY TAGG: Well, if you looked at it very objectively. My horse was getting the hell beat out of him and the other horse Jerry was trying to steer, Empire Maker, he was trying to lug in and he was trying to steer him so I talked myself into the fact that they were riding as hard as they could under the circumstances but it made it look like Jerry wasn't riding him that hard because he was actually trying to steer him. I clung to that faithfully so I could keep on the trail. (Laughs).

BARCLAY TAGG: He had -- one testicle hadn't distended so they decided to castrate the horse. Which is probably the best thing to do in those cases.

BARCLAY TAGG: None of us thought he was really ready for that at the time. We just didn't want to do it.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I think we were concerned. It was a mile and an eighth race. He'd only run seven furlongs and to try and get him out an eighth is an extra -- Barclay didn't think it made sense and we totally agreed.

BARCLAY TAGG: I think with a two-year-old it's best to get the easiest races in with them. These races were big money races and they were easy for him. So we kind of stuck to that, gave him some experience without killing him.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I actually was here one other year in 1989, saw Sunny Silence beat Easy Go. A little different experience this time I have to say. This has just a dream come true. The treatment we have received here from Churchill Downs has been spectacular from the first phone call I made to sitting here right now. I can't thank them enough.

BARCLAY TAGG: I don't know. I want to get back to the barn for a little while. (Laughs). I don't do much celebrating. Whatever these guys do if they drag me along I will be happy to do it with them. They are a lot of fun. They are a super group.

BARCLAY TAGG: Like I said before it is a very difficult game. I have had a lot of highs but I have had more lows, everybody does. It's kind of hard on you to get all carried away on a horse that might have a swollen ankle the next morning when he goes in or a bruised foot or a crack in his cannon bone, something like that as you can read in the paper day after day after day coming up to this thing it happens an awful lot. That was just what you saw concentrated on one race, but it's a daily occurrence with all these thoroughbreds things go wrong with them; they are very, very frail. And we ask them to do a lot. We ask them to carry weight and run 40 miles an hour and train everyday and live in a small stall full of dusty straw and hay and things like. That it is contrary to what nature really set them up for, and a lot of things go wrong with them. You just can't get too high on a horse because anything can happen. The most unexpected things can happen the next day. You will think you have a big fat shiny, good-looking horse that's working wonderfully and running beautifully and set him up for something like this and every day, 5 o'clock in the morning, you feel his legs and something could be wrong with him which will stop the whole thing. It happened to me so many times in the last 30 years. You can't get yourself too high. I am not a really optimistic person unfortunately anyway.

BARCLAY TAGG: It hit me right away then I have been busy since, so -- (laughs).

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I think that you know, it won't sink in totally for quite a while. It's just an absolute dream come true. Nothing that you would ever believe a group like ours could achieve. We're just so happy for the whole partnership, for our hometown, Sackatoga, and for New York racing, I kidded the governor, I said you know, it's probably a little bold for us to bring a New York gelding to Kentucky to win the biggest race in the word and we did it and we're glad to be here.

BARCLAY TAGG: I said I am a pessimist, when your horse goes across the finish line and disappears around the turn behind a huge crowd, and you don't see him for the next 30 or 40 minutes it seems, you start to worry a little bit. You don't know if there's an ambulance there on the other side picking him up or what is going on. I think maybe they grazed him a while, I don't know.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: Sackatoga sweep they can't wait to see Mary Lou and celebrate for Sackatoga. I was kidding Eric, He is a reporter from Sackatoga I said you think we'll make the front page tomorrow (laughs).

BARCLAY TAGG: I don't know. Everybody has to train their horse their own way. I think the main thing is to do what suits you and what suits your horse. It's like leg ligaments something like that, some ligaments work well for one trainer and others for another trainer, you have to have kind pattern of the way you do things I have always tried to stay very, very conservative with the way I did things, and it's never gotten me anywhere until now (laughs) but know I have had some very fine people to train for over the years and I have had some very nice big races, but they are few and far between unfortunately and this is very nice.

BARCLAY TAGG: I guess we have got to go down (laughs). I don't know how I will train him for it. I will have to do that kind -- we'll see how he is day by day.

BARCLAY TAGG: Yeah.

BARCLAY TAGG: Tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. He gets on the plane at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.

BARCLAY TAGG: (Laughs).

BARCLAY TAGG: Looked pretty good the 16th pole home I was starting to get pretty confident there. Unbelievable. I was an unbelievable feeling but I was starting to feel the confidence too. He looked like he wasn't going to quit and didn't look like the other horses were going to gain on him too much. I was starting to feel pretty good there.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I think that's the same thing. He had the lead he wasn't giving it up. The other horses weren't making a big move on him. The closers and everybody was looking forward to make that big run, Ten Most Wanted, Nowhere to be Found, the two real tough horses from Frankel were there, but they couldn't get us.

BARCLAY TAGG: He was getting pretty fractious when he hit that crowd out there around the 7/8 pole, and the outrider just rode over to see if we wanted him to take him. We said no, but he just stayed beside us which was nice to give the horse some company and helped us out a little bit. I wanted him to stay with Robin and the groom and not be handled by somebody else. But it was nice of him to help us, and his horse kept our horse company so it helped out a bit.

BARCLAY TAGG: That wasn't very fancy. I did it more for a bit of fun and I rode in New York for several years and had a good time. I never had any really, really good horses. But it was a struggle just like training was in the early years so finally got out of it and got into training. Thought I might as well struggle for something more lucrative.

BARCLAY TAGG: That's one of the fallacies with this Triple Crown, that's what makes it so hard to have a Triple Crown winner. It is very, very, very difficult to run a very hard mile and a quarter come back in two weeks and ship again and run a very, very hard mile and 3/16 then go to the other direction again and ship and run a very, very hard mile and a half against top young horses in the country every time. You can't really say it's fair to a horse to have to treat them that way but it's the only way they are going to have a chance of winning the Triple Crown so you just bite down and do it. That's all.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: One of the big battle grounds in the War of 1812. That's probably a history trivia question they had a small two building Navy yard there and ship building back in the War of 1812.

BARCLAY TAGG: Pretty good size horse for his age at the time and he was attractive and he seemed to have a nice flowing way of moving and he just was -- he just kind of caught your eye. The first time I saw him I really wasn't looking for a horse but always have that in the back of your mind if there's something nice around, you have to keep an eye on it. The next time I saw him I liked him a little better. And I don't think at the time I really had anybody to buy a horse right at that time, but I knew I would eventually and I knew these fellows were looking for a New York bred and he seemed like he might be the ideal thing. I wanted to see him one more time and we liked him very much the third time we saw him. We talked to these gentlemen and they wanted to buy him. The price was fine and he passed the vet with flying colors so we just put the deal through.

BARCLAY TAGG: They bought him I think for 22,000 the Saratiga sale, and in the fall and in August there -- August. And when we first saw him I think he was talk being 40,000 or something like that. They have got to make a profit they buy the horse take all the risk on it, and they have to break it there's a lot of risk with injury things like that when you have to break them and get them going. And then the horse started to show some speed in his workouts and he was maturing nicely all. That I think they wanted 40 and then 50 and then I didn't see him again for several months and they wanted 75 then. He looked like he was worth it. Maybe top price for him as a prospect at the time but it looked like he was worth it.

JOSE SANTOS: What happened was I hired a new agent which is doing a wonderful job and turned my business around 160 degrees. He is capable to find better horses for me to ride. I have been riding for 27 years and I know how to ride horses and he give me the right mount, he find the right mount for me, look, he found Funny Cide. That was a great move. I went to work with Funny Cide the first time in August in Sackatoga, and look, who is going to think in August at Funny Cide was going to win the Ken Derby. We have faith in him and Barclay did a great job of training him and we have a lot of support from the owners and the people around us and that's why we did it.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I want to tell you a little story after the Breeders Cup Classic that Jose won. We were at a party after that and of course he's on top of the world he's won the biggest race you know, moneywise in the country. I saw him he said, Funny Cide, he says, I love that horse that's my Derby horse for next year. So you think kind of with a grain of salt he's being a real nice guy and pumping up the owners, but I saw him at an Aqueduct last week reminded him of that story he said oh, yeah, I meant it. I said well, I guess so. And we're here. .

JOSE A. SANTOS: Mike Sellto (spelled by Jose).

BARCLAY TAGG: I think Jose had ridden him one time he made a comment that he was the best two year old that he ever run in his life. I tried to hang on to that too when trying to make a decision.

JOSE A. SANTOS: I came first time in 1987 with the horse and I win the Breeders Cup Classic. That was first time I came. That was come from behind horse and mentally I was not prepared then to run in the Derby, you have to have a lot of experience and be prepared physically and mentally. That's probably was my best shot, finished fourth and I should have win fished second that day.

JACKSON KNOWLTON: I had been involved in standardbred racing for about a dozen years, decided that that really was kind of a dead end and was at a Memorial day get together with my friends from Sackets Harbor and we talked about you know, maybe getting a thoroughbred. That's when we agreed that day to throw in 5,000 a piece. We knew a trainer that we had met through Gus Williams in Sackatoga by the name of Tim Kelly, Hall of Famer Tom Kelly's son. He found us a horse, 22,000. We named him Sackets Six after our high school and six of us partners, coined a phrase Sackets Six from Sackatoga. (Sic) that was the beginning of something that we just thought if we can get a nice New York bred or two along the way, that would be great. Barclay you know, after we joined him about four years ago, been able to locate a couple of nice horses for us. We were kind of playing on the house's money when we bought Funny Cide; that always makes it a lot easier.

JOSE SANTOS: I came to the United States when I saw the first time the American races I saw the famous Secretariat in 1973 and then for a long time I don't hear no more from the American racing until when I went to Columbia I was in 1978 watching the Kentucky Derby when Steve Toutan (ph) win, and I got interested to come to America, so I was very young then. I was about 18 or 19 years old. So I had to wait to get my visa to come to America and then they have a very famous classic race they call it the Caribbean Classic I was riding a very nice horse and I got a visa to ride it and at the end they take me off the horse but I have three months visa to come to America and I came to Florida and in 1984. Since then I have been here. The first couple of months was tough because I don't have no friends over here, came by myself, and then I start getting some friends and start riding a little bit and the first 6 or 8 months I don't do nothing but next year I was riding. Then I moved to New York in 1985. I was little riding there also for five years, actually. So they came very easy. People know I was working hard and people know they know and I know how to ride horses. And I got the opportunity to ride great horses - I mean, I can name you 20 great horses and still riding great horses - riding Funny Cide which I mean been giving me the thrill of my life.

BARCLAY TAGG: Well, he didn't look like a sprinter - he was tall and lean and narrow. He had a tremendous hind end on him like a sprinter. The rest was all distance looking to me. I thought the distance looked like we could do almost anything with him. It turned out that way.

BARCLAY TAGG: Well I kept horses in Maryland for 30 years. And just January a year ago I disbanded my group there. Probably move a group back there this year sometime this spring, but it had just gotten so that it was uneconomical for me to train horses there. I like New York and I took horses to New York about 14 years ago just so that I could be part of it. I didn't really have any great horses to take up there or anything but I had won races up there at different times shipping in and out things like that had what I thought was pretty good successes up there but I had never had a group of horses there until about 14 years ago. I just wanted to be in New York, so I drug some of my owners up there and made them put up with me, that was all. (Laughs) fortunately I have picked up some new people also from New York that are great people and I like New York.

JOSE A. SANTOS: I done want the tell you the age of my wife. She will kill me. My wife name is Rita and my daughter is Nadia., By the way for your records you know who drove Funny Cide's father for the first time? I did. The father of Funny Cide. My daughter is 15.

BARCLAY TAGG: What did your daddy say this morning about this race last time you talked to him? Did he say he could win it or not.

JOSE SANTOS JR: He said I am very confident about this horse and I think I am going to win.

BARCLAY TAGG: Good. I wanted to know the truth.