Triple Crown journey can be a win-lose proposition

ELMONT, N.Y. — They stood in the inner courtyard of Barn 6 at Belmont Park on Friday, momentarily swept back a dozen years.

Jack Knowlton and Barclay Tagg spent pinch-me mornings in this same spot in 2003. They smiled at the still-vivid memories of their own Triple Crown bid with the New York-bred gelding Funny Cide. Knowlton was the public face of the common-man consortium of high school buddies who owned the horse that won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Tagg was the taciturn trainer.

They came out of nowhere together to become a suddenly big deal 12 Junes ago. And lived to tell about it.

The Sacketoga Six, as the ownership cabal was known – a group of guys who lived in tiny Sackets Harbor in upstate New York and pooled modest funds to start Sacketoga Stable – had never experienced anything like their whirlwind trip to the top of the Sport of Kings. Neither had Tagg – a successful, veteran horseman who did most of his work in the sport's lower ranks. Until Funny Cide changed their lives.

On the eve of yet another attempt at winning the elusive Triple Crown, Barn 6 is quiet. The media herd is congregated down the way at Barn 3, where Ahmed Zayat, Bob Baffert and this year's Triple Crown aspirant, American Pharoah, are located. It's their circus now, their turn to smile and struggle through the last hours of a six-week joy ride that has a tendency to become a forced march.

The bandwagon literally morphed beyond reckoning for the Funny Cide crew. They rented a yellow school bus to take their entourage to the Derby. Then had to rent two to accommodate the crowd for the Preakness. And then four for the Belmont.

Sacketoga's Belmont bar tab was $18,000, as their private party was crashed by who-knows-how-many interlopers.

"It was crazy," Knowlton said.

Three decades earlier, Penny Chenery went through even more.

“For me, the weeks between the last two races were just impossible,” said Secretariat’s owner. “Secretariat was a very charismatic horse and really captured the public's attention. I'm not shy. We did in depth interviews for three magazines, and it was just hell week. I loved it, but it was a lot of work.”

As thrilling as a winning journey is from early May in Kentucky to mid-May in Baltimore to early June in New York, it also will strip bare the sojourners. Their life stories are told, warts and all. Backgrounds are checked. Feel-good stories can sour after too much shelf life. People unaccustomed to the harsh glare of public life – some of them in it for the first time – may not like how they look by the end.

In 1998, Real Quiet owner Mike Pegram began the Triple Crown as a folksy small-town sharpie from Princeton, Ind. After saying the distance from Princeton to Churchill Downs was "six Coors Lights," Pegram came under fire for seemingly espousing drunk driving.

In 1999, Charismatic jockey Chris Antley's turbulent personal history became fodder. In 2002, War Emblem owner Prince Ahmed bid Salman encountered some backlash as a Saudi Arabian expatriate in a paranoid post-9/11 atmosphere. In 2004, Smarty Jones jockey Stewart Elliott, a national unknown, suddenly had a couple of assault charges become part of the Triple Crown storyline. The trainers of Big Brown (Rick Dutrow) and I'll Have Another (Doug O'Neill) had their careers put under scrutiny for medication violations with their horses.

And last year, California Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn began the run as a charming Everyman who looked like Wilford Brimley. He ended it sounding like a sore loser, firing off a tirade at the owners of Tonalist, the horse that beat California Chrome in the Belmont. The final act of a racing fairy tale was Coburn angrily weaving out of Belmont Park, telling every reporter in his path what cowards the connections of Tonalist were for skipping the first two legs of the Triple Crown.

"My rule was, 'Don't say something stupid,' " Knowlton recalled from the '03 Triple Crown run. "The press being what it is, you'll get crucified if you say something stupid. Last year, [Coburn] did say something stupid. You can't take the words back."

This year it has been American Pharoah owner Ahmed Zayat's turn in the press petri dish. This is a guy with a bankruptcy and a legendary (perhaps problematic) gambling appetite as part of curriculum vitae. Then there are the stories about Zayat being chronically late paying bills to those who work with his horses.

Bob Baffert, American Pharoah's trainer, has lamented the build-them-up, tear-them-down cycle of the Triple Crown. In Baffert's previous three bids to win the elusive prize, the Californian's divorce and remarriage to a former Louisville TV anchor became its own melodrama. And that was after he became one of the most famous trainers in the country.

The first two times he ran this gauntlet, with Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet in '98, even the notably loquacious Baffert was done well before the finish line.

"I was worn out," he said Friday. "I was so really burned out. I couldn't wait for it to be over."

With the horses refusing to comment, the burden is thrust upon the human connections. But here's the catch: when it's over, it may be over for good. Baffert is the exception, coming back to this spot repeatedly. For most who have a shot at a Triple Crown, the experience is once in a lifetime.

That certainly was the case for the Sacketoga Six.

"It was absolutely crazy," Knowlton said. "We enjoyed every minute of it."

"I worried every minute of it," Tagg added.

Funny Cide was a high-strung horse who didn't like crowds. And crowds come with the Triple Crown territory. By the time the hordes arrived in New York for the Belmont and set up camp at Barn 6, Tagg had had enough of the interference with daily training duties.

"The horse's ass is right here," Tagg said, motioning directly in front of himself. "And there's 50 to 60 people running up right behind him. The crowd was just unbelievable, and he got keyed up. I didn't want it to take [his energy] out of him. Unfortunately, it did take a lot out of him."

It took even more out of the people. But 12 years later, the post-traumatic stress is largely gone. The goosebumps remain for the boys at Barn 6.

More Triple Crown coverage on Yahoo Sports: